Sonic and Amy's Infinite Playlist
by Whitney911
Summary: Sonic's just seen the girl who dumped him walk in with a new guy. What else can he do but ask the girl next to him to be his five-minute girlfriend? ...without realizing that it was Amy who just kissed him who he hadn't seen for ten years. sonamy COMPLETE
1. Chapter 1

**Chapter 1. Sonic**

I sit at the bar, waiting for my group's band to perform. I take a few sips of beer in my mug as I watch the group who's playing now. They call themselves the Roses and are singing a song called Goodbye To You. The lead singer looks too much like Amy, who I know it isn't cause we haven't seen each other for ten years. Ten, long, painful, damn years. And it's all my fault. When she asked if she should go, we started fighting and I told her to leave. She had inherited something from her uncle or something, and so I paid for my stupid actions. Still paying. I miss her to death, especially now. After a six month relationship with Sally, my dream girl, she dumps me. Three weeks, two days and twenty-three hours ago. And it's killing me. If Amy were here, she would be there for me. But she's not. And that girl on stage who looked so much like her reminded me of that.

I'm feeling like I'm going to burst, but Tails tells me we're up. The pink hedgehog is in the last verse, singing _**How could I have loved someone like the one I see in you/ Now remember the good times baby now and the bad times too/ These last few weeks of holding on/ The days are dull, the nights are long/ Guess it's better to say/ Goodbye to you.**_ Now that they're at the final goodbye part, I follow Tails and Knuckles up stage. The girls end their song, silencing the amazing voice of the lead singer. We bring out the equipment as the Roses pack up theirs. Tails gives them a nod, they nod back in reply. Then we're on the stage and the guitar starts.

The day begins now. I am not paying attention to anything but the bass in my hand, the noise in my ears. Knuckles is raping, I am flailing and Tails is the clockwork, the one who takes this thing called music and lines it up with this thing called time. I am the melody. Tails is the ticking and the pulsing. I am underneath every part of this moment. No drums, but we've got rhythm. I am listening and I am not listening because what I'm playing isn't something I'm thinking about, it's something I'm feeling all over. It's a small room and we're a big noise and I am the nonqueer guitarist in a raping/rocking band who is filling the room with undertone as Knuckles is singing, **_bring it on/we'll take you one/No room for the two of us/ so we'll take you on._**

I am punctuating and I am puncturing and I am punching the air with my nody as my fingers press hard into the cords. All eyes are on us. Amy would be watching us. Amy would be watching me. Wherever you are, I'm playing for you.

Sweat, malice and hunger pour from me. This is release, or maybe it's just a plea for release. Knuc is beat boxing and Tails is strumming and even though my feet don't move I am traveling hard. I look past the light and see people shaking, people jumping around, and people watching. I throw the chords at them, I drench them in the soundwaves, I am making them so loud that they have to hear it. I am stronger than words and I am bigger than the box I'm in. And I see her in the crowd and I fall apart.

I told her not to come. While she was busy ripping me into pieces, that was the one fragment I begged to keep. Twice in ten years I have been heart broken. She does not have to make it harder for me. I told her with a please not to come to the shows. I told her that I didn't want to see her there. And she said yes, and it hadn't been a lie then. But it turned into a lie at some point, because here she is. My fingers are losing their place and my buzz is losing its edge, and everything about me goes from crying out to just plain crying-all in the time it takes for me to see the shape of her lips.

And then I see--oh hell no--that she's not alone, that she's with some guy. She'll say that she's come to watch me, and there's no doubt that she's come so that I can watch her. _It's over,_ she'd said, and it wasn't that the biggest lie of all? I am stumbling through the notes and Knuc is onto the next verse and Tails is playing a little faster than he should, so I have to keep up as she leans into this guy and rocks her head like I'm making this music for her. If I could, I would take it all away and give her as much silence as she's given me pain.

I'm rutting now, waiting for the winddown. Tails looks like he's about to do a solo, which is never a good position to be in when you play bass. I move my feet, turn away from her and try to pretend that she's not there, which is the biggest joke I've ever not laughed at. I try to get Knuckles attention from the periphery, but he's too busy wiping the sweat on his chest to notice. Finally, though, he gets a burst of energy strong enough to end the thing on. So he throws out his arms and howls and I run us into the ground with the final lurch. The crowd sends us a burst of their own noise. I try to hear her voice, try to separate that single pitch from the shouts and applause. But she's as lost to me as she was the night I cried and she didn't turn back to see if I was okay. Three weeks, two day and twenty-tree hours ago. And she's already with someone else.

The next band is at the side of the stage. The owner of the club is motioning that our time is up. I am not so gone that I'm not gratified by the calls for more, by that little sound of letdown when the lights go up to show the crowd a clearer path back to the bar. Tails and I are the equipment movers, so while Knuckles is using this opportunity to flirt with girls while Rouge isn't there, we have to immediately detox so I can pack up our gear. I go from chords to chords, amped to amps with Tails by my side.

My eye is still used to searching for her in a crowd. My breath is still used to catching when I see her and the light is angled just right. My body is still used to hers moving next to mine. So the distance--anything short of contact--is a constant rejection. We were together for six damned months, and in each of those wasted months my desire found new ways to be fueled by her. It's over can't kill that. All of the songs I wrote in my head were for her, and now I can't stop them from playing. This null soundtrack. I'm tired, she'd said, and I told her that I was tired too and that I wanted to take some time for us too. And then she'd said, No, I'm tired of you, and I slipped into the surreal-but-true universe where we were over and I wasn't over it. She was no longer any kind of here that I could get to.

I keep my back to the crowd as I store the equipment and instruments somewhere safe. Tails can sense my distress and obviously knows what's bugging me, cause he's giving me a pat on the back and the look of pity. I know that he wants to help out, but he can't because only my pathetic heart can fix this problem. The only problem is that it's the problem. Then comes the moment when I can't keep my back to it anymore, since there's only so long that you can stare at a wall before you feel like an idiot. I am saved by the next band, which cranks the volume even higher and soon engulfs us all in beautiful chaos. Not as beautiful as the voice of the lead singer of the Roses, but still beautiful enough to satisfy my liking. They're called Are You Randy? and the lead singer, who is a yellow toucan wearing blue leotards, is actually singing instead of moaning or raping. I dare a glance into the crowd and I don't see her anymore. I don't see many hers at all-it's a sea of hims pressing and crashing against one another as the lead singer tells them the state of things, breaking into bits and pieces of "I Want You to Want Me," "Blue Moon" and "All Apologies" as he dances through his own seven veils.

I think Sally will like this band, and the fact that I know this stabs me again, because all the knowledge of what she likes is perfectly useless now. I wonder who the guy is. I wonder if the two of them knew each other three weeks and three days ago. It would be worse if I actually saw him. I find Knuckles at the bar, talking to a guy our age who looks familiar in that Type kind of way. When I get to where they're standing, I'm introduced as "the string god, Sonic," and he's introduced as "Hunter from Hunter." Knuckles thanks me for being the equipment bitch and from the way the conversation doesn't continue from there I know that I'm interrupting. If it was Tails, he would've talked to me. But Knuckles is a knuckle-head, so you need to spell emotions out for him, and right now I'm not in the mood. So I just tell him where we left the stuff and pretend I'm going off to search for a clear spot on the bar to summon the bartender from. And once I'm pretending that's the truth, I figure it might as well be the truth. I still can't see Sally and there's a small part of me that's wondering if it was even her in the crowd. Maybe it was someone who looked like Sally, which would explain the guy who didn't look like anybody.

Are You Randy? stop playing their instruments one by one, until the lead singer croons a final, a cappella note. I wish for their sake I could say the club falls into silence at this, but in truth the air is one-half conversation. Still, that's better than average, and the band gets a lunge of applause and cheers. I clap too and notice that the girl next to me is none other than the lead singer of the Roses. I am able to get a clearer look at her, taking note of her complexion and figure. Perfect in both factors, I admit. She's wearing a white tank-top and a blue knee-length skirt, along with a matching pair of sandles. Her quills are just below her shoulders and her eyes are the same as mine, only with so much more depth in them. Oh dear god, she reminds me too much of Amy. Is God trying to make me lose my mind or something? First I've been dumped, now I'm seeing Amy everywhere, making me drown in the eternal guilt of letting her go. Damn, what a terrible night.

Knuckles and Tails would probably be ready to go if I wanted them to, but I'm pretty sure Knuckles hasn't figured out if he's coming back with us or not and I'd be a jerk if I put him on the spot and ask. So I'm stuck and I know it and that's when I look to my left and see Sally and her new guy approaching the beer-spilled bar to order another round of what I'm not having. It's definitely her and I'm definitely in deep crap because the between-band rush is pressing toward me now and if I try to leave I'll have to push my way out. And if I push my way out, she'll see me making an escape and she'll know for sure that I can't take it, and even if it's the goddamn truth I don't want her to have actual proof. She is looking so hot and I am feeling so cold and the guy she's with has his hand on her arm in a way that a gay friend would never, ever think of, and I guess that's my own proof. I am the old model and this is the new model. I could crash out a year's worth of time on my guitar and nothing, absolutely nothing, would change.

She sees me. She can't fake surprise at seeing me here, because of course she damn knew I'd be here. So she does a little smile thing and whispers something to the new model and I can tell just from her expression that after they get their now-being-poured drinks they are going to come over and say hello and good show and-could she be so stupid and cruel?-how are you doing? And I can't stand the thought of it. I see it all unfolding and I know I have to do something-anything-to stop it.

So, I, this random guitarist who is pretty popular for his saving the world crap, turn to this girl in the knee length skirt who looks ridiculously like Amy who I don't even know and say: "I know this is going to sound weird, but would you mind being my girlfriend for the next five minutes?"


	2. Chapter 2

**2. Amy**

I never believed in fate, but I'm seriously freaking out here. There is _no way_ Sonic would be here the same day and time I am. And, god he's changed. He looks sexier than ever, and he's taller now. He never looked better, or crushed. He was just dating Sally, and she dumped him. Had he really felt for her? I don't see what he sees in her. On the second thought, maybe I do. Sally is a great actress. I call her the manizer. So there he is, broken hearted, strumming his heart out. He's the only one I'm looking at. The only one I care about. I'm guessing that it's Knuckles who's raping and Tails who's playing bass. Sonic is the melody, and he's just perfect for it. He looks in the crowd and strums harder. Then he suddenly sucks. His eyes are suddenly wide and he turns away from the crowd as Tails is speeding up too much. What the hell? I turn away, the magic reflecting from the blue hedgehog gone. I have no intention of speaking to him tonight. I mean, I wouldn't go up to him and say, "Hey Sonic! What's up after ten years? Heard you got dumped. How are you handling that?" Though I wouldn't go up to him and say that, I can't stop a grin spread across my face as I imagine myself asking those questions. That bastard deserves it anyways. Seriously, breaking my heart again and again and then telling me to leave? A heartless asshole.  
I make my way to the bar, accompanied by congrats here and there. I get a drink on-the-house and watch as the Sonic Team end their little skit. I start a conversation with the bartender. Next thing I know, Sonic is sitting next to me. Oh god. I try my best not to stare and hope he doesn't recognize me. Then he suddenly asks me to be his five-minute girlfriend. Does he know who he's talking to? Guess not. Only because I am the one loser here who hasn't lost all her senses to beer, dope, or hormones do I have the sense to hold back my original instinct-to yell back "FUCK NO!" in response to the blue blur's question. I have to think about Caroline. I always have to think about Caroline.  
I noticed that Soniku was loading equipment after his band's set while Knuckles abandoned him to score some action. I understand that scene. I am that scene, cleaning up everyone else's mess.  
Anyways, since Sonic is the equipment bitch, he has a van. The van's probably a piece of scrap metal with a leaking carburetor that will very likely pop a tire or run out of gas in the middle of the Lincoln Tunnel, but it's a risk I'm going to have to take. Somebody's got to bring Caroline home. She's too drunk to risk taking her on the bus. She's also so drunk she'll go home with Randy if I'm off. Groupie bitch. If I didn't love her so much, I'd kill her.  
I look around the club as the between-set mass of people swarm past/through/into me like I'm a ghost with the inconvenience of malleable flesh getting in their way on the way to the beer. Damn, I've lost Caroline again. She is big on Randy tonight, which is cool-Are You Randy? don't completely suck-but Randy himself is big on E tonight, and I gotta make sure he doesn't get her alone in a corner. But I'm too small and Sonic is standing in front of me and he is freakin' tall and he's waiting to find out if I want to be his five-minute girlfriend and looking like that lost animal who goes around asking "Are you my mother?" in that kid book.  
From behind him I don't see Caroline but I do see that stupid bitch, Sally. She'll rip a guy piece by piece. And she's coming right towards me. No. No. NOOOOOOOOOOOOO. How did she find out Caroline and I would be here tonight? Does she have lookouts with text pagers set up every place Caroline and I go on a Saturday night, or what?  
Boyfriend to the rescue! No way am I talking to that slut. I answer Sonic's question by putting my hand around his neck and pulling his face down to mine. God, I sure am desperate. I would do anything to avoid Sally recognizing me and trying to talk to me.  
Damn. I didn't expect Sonic to be such a good kisser. Especially not Sonic. But I'm not looking for chemistry here, just a ride home for my girl. I can't help but get caught up in the kiss. No matter how good he tastes, this five-minute girlfriend needs a few seconds to come up for air. I separate my mouth from his, hoping to catch my breath and hoping to catch Sally walking away from us without having noticed me after all.  
WOW. I feel like I have been kicked in the stomach, but by the giddy police in this riot of people. Forget about the need for oxygen. My mouth wants to go back to the place it just left.  
Unfortunately, Sally is standing right in front of us, hanging on to her latest slobber victim, who is near enough now that I can positively ID him as one of Caroline's recent rejects; he's buddies with Hunter from Hunter, whose band, Hunter Does Hunter, is scheduled to play next. Sally clutches her arm tight around the guy's waist, probably squeezing out whatever remaining life that soul-sucking skank hasn't yet gotten out of him in the three weeks or so since Caroline gave him the heave-ho.  
Sally says, "Sonic? Amy? How do you two know each other?"  
That loser should not be in a club like this. I'm going to need another talk with Uncle Lou about standards _vis-à-vis_ owning and operating a club. The guy can snag great new talent-the raw, hungry kind who are ready to bleed their intestines or other useful body parts onto Crazy Lou's stage for the opportunity to perform on it-but he doesn't know anything about how to run this business. Look at the underage riffraff he lets in! He probably even comps the beers for the band members! LOU!!! Why do you think so many of these dorks are alcoholics and junkies? They've got the music right. They can play the core punk songs with conviction-hard, fast, angry-but they haven't wised up yet to the fact that real punk goes down now with a straight edge: no alcohol, no drugs, no cigarettes, no skanks. The real punk now is the only punk left after all the madness: the music and the message.  
I don't know why, but I do that thing Caroline does to her male victims, where instead of taking Sonic's hand, I place mine at the back of his neck and scratch the nape softly, possessively, while Sally watches. My fingers scan the back of his neck and I feel goose bumps rising on his neck. Heh. Never saw that before. There is some satisfaction in seeing Sally's bottom lip nearly fall to her chin in shock. That's the thing about Sally: She's never subtle.  
Whatever I'm doing, it works. Se storms away, speechless. Phew. That was easier than I expected. I look at the clock in the bar. I believe my new boyfriend and I have about two minutes and forty-five seconds before we break up. I'll have to cut it short. Before I can walk off though, Sonic says, "How in the world do you know Sally?"  
Oh crap. I just forgot that he was the one Sally just dumped. Nooooooooooooo. And it's Sonic. Noooooooooo. My desperate attitude got the better of me! Sonic's the guy who wrote all the songs and poems about Sally, the best goddamn boyfriend anyone could ever have. And it's Sonic!  
I don't bother answering Sonic's question about how in the world I know Sally. I've got to find Caroline.

I stand up on the barstool. The only way I'll find her with all these people and this loud music and this stink sweat and this beer energy and this never-ending day that feels like it's only beginning in the middle of this night. I place my hand on Sonic's head to steady my balance, my actions gratified by an 'ouch!' by the blue guy.  
There she is! I see Caroline huddling with Randy at a corner table by the brick wall just off the stage, to the right of Hunter from Hunter Does Hunter, who is now taking the mic. I jump down from the barstool and take off toward Caroline, but Sonic's hand clenches my wrist from behind me, pulling me back to him."Seriously," he says, "how in the world do you know Sally? And what's your last name?"  
Oh crap. I wouldn't mind answering the first question, but the second? Oh crap. I turn to him and am now looking straight at him. I notice how lost he looks, yet eager for me to stay with him, his eyes kind and angry at the same time. Noticing makes me remember a lyric from some song he wrote for Sally that she passed around because she thought it was so lame._  
The way you're singing in your sleep  
The way you look before you leap  
The strange illusions that you keep  
You don't know__  
But I'm noticing_  
Screw Sally. I would give body parts to have a guy write something like that for me. My kidney? Oh, both of them? Here, Sonic, they're yours-just write more for me. Sonic, let's here some lyrics. Please?  
I want to stomp my foot in frustration-for him and for me. Because I know that whatever Sally had did or said to him, it's what's given him that haunted puppy-dog look of pathetic despair. She's the reason he will probably become an embittered old jerk and write rude songs about woman and distrusting them. And from here into eternity thinking all chicks are lying cheating sluts because one of them broke his heart.  
That look on his face makes me fall into pieces, even though I just want to point and laugh and say, "Ha! Take that, you bastard!" Instead, I can't help smiling and say, " Wanna guess your answer to the second question?"  
He looks at me. His eyes suddenly have different emotion, like relief or something, then he whispers, "Amy Rose."


	3. Chapter 3

Just in case you're wondering , the song in the beginning that the Roses were singing (amy) was called Goodbye to You by the Veronicas. Just thought you should know.

**

* * *

3. Sonic**

When Sally passes by, it's like the world is no longer three-dimensional. The third dimension falls away, then the second, and all that's left is one dimension, and that dimension is her.  
But of course, there's another dimension, and that dimension is time and it keeps going. Sally keeps walking and all the other dimensions come back. Funny how, even though there are now more, it feels like a whole lot less.  
And that all leads me to Amy, who turned out to be Amy, not just a look-a-like. And there are no words able to explain my relief and happiness. We met accidentally, and already she helped me in a tough situation, which was the attempt to avoid Sally at all costs. Amy's changed quite a bit. She's hell of a good singer and a good kisser, and she looks absolutely amazing. I never expected Amy to turn out this way. And there's no other way I'd rather have it. But none of that changed my one-dimensional world that was crushing me.  
The thing I want to know is why she knows Sally. That is just the weirdest thing. I'm about to ask, but instead she tells me, "Well, it was great meeting you again. See ya."  
What the hell? I grab her arm again. "Why are you leaving?"  
"I've gotta find my friend," she says.  
"I'll come with, I volunteer. Not only is it because I know that Sally is somewhere behind me, maybe even watching, that I offer. I mean, I've just been re-acquainted to Amy. After ten years. And she kissed me. Besides, it's not like I've got anything better to do than follow my long lost friend/lover who is a hell of a good kisser wherever she wants to go.  
"I'll tell you what," Amy says. "You give us a ride, and I'll give you two extra minutes on your original offer.  
"Seven's my lucky number," I tell her.  
And she looks at me. Y.p.s.  
"But really," I say, "how do you know Sally?"  
"I cut and dyed her hair seven years ago. Hated me ever since."  
She's pushing through the crowd now, and I'm following.  
"She was here just a second ago," she says.  
"Who?"  
"No one. Caroline. I mean, just shut up for a second so I can think, okay?"  
Okay, so if I'm quiet she'll be able to hear every frickin' footstep in the club?  
While she's peering around, I make the idiot move of looking behind me. I see Sally and the new model making out. And she's looking at me the whole time. I swear she's looking at me.  
I turn away and Amy isn't there, but luckily she's only a few feet away. The girl she's diving for looks kind of familiar, like the girl I had to step over to get to the men's room last week. Right now she's hanging onto the guy from Are You Randy? like she's auditioning to be a pocket on his jacket. And I can tell he's about ready to sew her on. Only my Seven-Minute Girlfriend stands in the way. She's saying Caroline's name like an older sister would say it, and from the resentment that flashes in Caroline's eyes I'd believe they were sisters if Amy hadn't already called Caroline her friend and if I didn't know Amy before.  
Caroline's about to say something really harsh, but suddenly Hunter and some other guy on stage go into a club dance. We all suddenly turn seven years old again and are dancing like we spit out the Ritalin while Mom wasn't looking. We become this one flailing paramecium mass, fever connected as the guitarist riffs electrons. Even Sally must be a part of this, and if we're both part of it, then that means we're still in some way connected. Everyone in this room is connected, except Amy. She's now the kind of statue they don't ever make; a statue of someone totally defeated. Caroline's dancing against the guy from Are You Randy? like God or Billie Joe Armstrong meant her to do it. I try to obliterate myself in the song, but there's something in me that just won't combust. I think my seven-minute girlfriend is standing on the fuse.  
"What's up?" I shout. She looks up at me like she's forgotten I exist. This means she's also forgotten to guard herself from me, so I have a moment when I see the sentences behind her eyes. I can't do this. This is too hard.  
I change my question. "What's wrong?" And just like that, her sentences are shut behind a screen. But I'm curious. Yes, I'm damn curious.  
"Nothing," she says. "And I think maybe our time is up."  
"You don't need a ride anymore?" I ask. There is no way I'm letting her go that easy.  
She swears. "Wait right here."  
The song ahs ended now and everyone is cheering. Hunter and the other guy are taking their bows. While the guy from Are You Randy? uses his hands to clap, Amy puts her hand on Caroline's shoulder and leans in to shout in her ear. What follows is one of those ropeless tugs of war, measured in centimetres to pull and pull away. I can't hear any of it until Caroline screams, "I am not trashed!" which means she is. Who else would use a completely wasted phrase? The guy from Are You Randy? is starting to catch on, so he's trying to catch up by catching hold. But his instinct totally defeats him because his hand swerves somewhere near her breast, which isn't really the terrain he needs to keep his ground. Amy gets pissed and her yank trumps his fingerless-gloved palm in contest, and Caroline is soon stumbling in my direction.  
Before I really know what's happening, Caroline's titling into me and I'm catching her. Then she's heaving down and I'm sure she's about to puke all over me. Thankfully she doesn't. Instead, she rises and looks at me and says, "You have really ugly shoes."  
Amy's next to me now, saying, "Let's go." She leaves Caroline there for me to carry as she's yelling and getting people out of her way. My heart understands the direction we're going in, because it starts pounding like it's got something really damn important to say, and by the time I'm out of my head enough to really use my eyes, there's someone in our way, and that someone is the girl who took the key to my heart and swallowed it with a smile.  
"I need your car," she says.  
And it's like I've forgotten that the word for "What?" is "What?" because I just stand there and look at Sally and think she's talking to me and somehow translate that into she's giving me a chance.  
"I need to go somewhere," she tells me. "I promise I'll bring it back."  
I'm reaching for the keys in my jacket pocket. I'm thinking I'll go with you. I'm thinking of passenger-seat conversations and making song dedications in my head. Her face lit by that nighttime driving light two parts dashboard, one part headlight strobe from the opposite lane. I am remembering that so much.  
Fuck, I loved her then. And then is blurring into now. I'm thinking why not? I'm thinking we're still the same people. And a voice outside of me is saying, "I'm afraid the car's already full. No room for you, Sally. Sorry."  
Amy is grinning now, all transparent sweetness and light.  
"Excuse me?" Sally asks.  
"I'm sorry. I wasn't very clear. Let me try again. FUCK OFF."  
"I think turning off to fucking is your department, Amy. Now why don't you take Drunkzilla here and go find some nice Weezer fans to rock-tease. I'm talking to Sonic, not you."  
And I'm thinking: She's fighting over me. Sally is fighting over me.  
But for some reason it's Amy who's putting her arm around me and grabbing my keys from my pocket.  
I'm about to shudder her off, but then Sally says, "Come on, Sonic-we're really late and need the car. I'll pay you back for the gas." And I know right away that I'm not a part of her "we." I've been exiled from her "we."  
"I'm going to find Randy," Caroline decides.  
"Uh, hell no you're not," Amy says, taking her arm from my shoulder and linking it around Caroline's elbow. Which leaves us in this weird we're off to see the wizard pose, with Sally blocking us like the Wicked Witch of the Past.  
She could have me so easily. But instead she snorts and says, "You can take him. I only wanted his car."  
And with that, Sally leaves me for good. Every time I see her, from now until I die, she will leave me for good. Over and over and over again.  
Amy steadies Caroline with her full body. It's my turn to lead now, and I can barely do it. It's not that I'm drunk or stoned or spiralling high. It's just that I'm defeated. And that's impairing all of my senses.  
There's only one hopeful chord in this cacophony, and it's this girl I'm following. I know I could tell her to get a cab-I have a feeling she can more than afford it-but I like the idea of leaving with her and staying with her. I want to talk to her and ask her why she left, which needs perfect timing, so I'm gonna have to wait. She says goodbye to the club manager as we reach the door and are released into the street. The sidewalk is full of smokers, talking or posing their way to ash. I get the nod from a couple of people I vaguely know. Ordinarily if I left with two hot girls, there'd also be some looks of admiration. Maybe it's because of the clear anger between Amy and Caroline, or maybe it's because they all think I'm gay-whatever the case, I get no more congratulations than a cabdriver does for picking up a fare.  
I know I should offer to help Amy propel Caroline forward, but the truth is that I don't feel like I can carry anyone but myself right now. The streets are empty. I am empty. Or, no-I am full of pain, It's my life that is empty. I stumble for my keys. Sally will not be waiting for me inside of the car. Amy will not be waiting for me ever again.  
I shouldn't have come here. Even though I met Amy again, I shouldn't have been anywhere that Sally could find.  
We're at my car.  
"Nice ride," Amy says.


	4. Chapter 4

**4. Amy**

Ugh. It's a nightmare. The stupid car smells like Sally's patchouli aromatherapy oil. And what's worse? A stupid car that smells like Sally's patchouli aromatherapy oil that is STALLED.

Sonic may be a guitar god but he's also a parking god because he scored a spot right in front of the club, the unfortunate consequence of which is that now my stalled ears are receiving listening benefit of the band playing inside the club. They're fucking good and that's really pissing me off. I'm not sure if I backed into my life by getting into this nice ride that won't start with my almost-boyfriend, or if I backed out of it by leaving the club to save Caroline once again. Whichever one it is, I'm left wanting more music. It's still Hunter on stage but now I can hear that the Dev dude is singing some strange harmony with Hunter on a Green Day cover. Hunter Does Hunter have accelerated the lite-FM classic song (because how much more punk can you go than producing an elevator song staple) up to Parliament tempo and I swear there's a DJ mixing a sample of that Michael Jackson freak moaning about how _Billie Jean is not my lover, the kid is not my son_ into the groove. How is that possible and why does it have to sound so damn good and if the car doesn't start within one second I am outta here and bringing my hammer to the car. I don't care how tempted I am to try another seven minutes of being Sonic's girlfriend after we've got Caroline back to my place. For a poor schmuck, he's deliciously cute.

"Do you hear that?" I ask Sonic.

"What? Is the engine starting?" The poor schmuck is not only cute and a great head-bob thrash-dancer, he's a good guy. I've known him years ago, and I've never met anyone with a more caring personality than him. At least he proved deft at manoeuvring a drunken Caroline goddess into the backseat of his car and making her think it was a good idea. Let's not forget the part about him being a good kisser. Even though he is a bastard for hurting my feelings, he deserves better than Sally.

I tell him, "No. Sonic. Listen up, that rhythmic banging inside the club? It's called drumming. It's famous as an underlying staple of sound since primitive cultures." I play drums on the glove compartment of the nice car that won't start (I don't speak car and driver, so I have no idea what this car is). The compartment pops open from my banging. A Polaroid of Sally is taped inside the compartment. I rip it out. Bloody hell! Caroline isn't paranoid-Sally really _did_ swipe Caroline's vintage cut-off white T-shirt with Flea's autograph over the left breast area. I toss the picture out the window and turn to face Sonic, who is looking at the glove compartment like he can't believe what I just did.

"You band needs a drummer. I saw you grinding to Hunter's earlier dance mix back in the club. I know you feel rhythm more than just your heart-attack inducing guitar skills. Think about it. What would the mix have been without Tres Cool? Get a drummer for your band, guy. Really."

Caroline has yet to reach her warm-cuddly drunk stage post-heave and pre-slumber, which would put her in inquisitive stage about now, and right on schedule, from the backseat, she interjects, "Really," because Caroline is always picking up sentences where I leave 'em off. "Driver person. Hey!" She taps Sonic's shoulder from behind him. Sonic looks around to her but quickly turns back around to face me, Caroline wants to know, "Why would you wear such ugly shoes? Answer me, driver person. Please?"

"The shoes go with the car, Caroline," I tell her. "Drivers of such nice cars need ugly shoes to match so that they don't make others feel too bad. It's like a rule. It's in the manual." I pull the car manual from the glove compartment and throw the manual into the back seat for Caroline's perusal. She ignores the Good Book. "Are you Yugoslavian, driver person?" Caroline asks Sonic. "Amy, is that why's he's driving us home? He's a taxi driver, right?"

"Sure," I tell her. He'll be the taxi driver as soon as his pretty cab will fucking start. We're operating on a limited window of opportunity, here. It took ten minutes just to get Caroline into the backseat. I can see Randy now, loitering outside the club, smoking a cigarette, talking up Crazy Lou but glancing toward the car, ready to pounce on Caroline again, I'm sure, if this car doesn't blow out of here soon.

"Is there such an ethnicity as Yugoslavian anymore?" Sonic asks. "Now that the country's all broken up? That was some bad stuff that went down there in Serbia and Croatia, right. Shame." He shakes his head and his hand idles on the ignition key, as if he's given up. He knocks his head against the wheel and slams his fist against the stick shift. He's done. He can't take it anymore. This car ain't going nowhere. He looks so depressed and defeated, I don't have the heart to slam him for acting like a kid, even though he seriously deserves it.

Caroline informs us, "I'm part Yugoslavian, you know. On my great-grandpa's side."

I tell her, "You're part Transylvanian too, bitch. Be quiet. I need to think." How the hell are we going to get home now? And why do I have to get Caroline home anyway? Sonic is sitting right next to me, who is really hot, even if he is a Sally pass-along, but he's got potential to be molded. Plus, I never properly used up those two add-on minutes of being Sonic's girlfriend.

Caroline says, "You're not the boss of me, Sub Z."

It's basic instinct. I can't help myself. I turn around to face Dragonbreath and snap, "Don't call me that!" She giggles, satisfied to have gotten a rise out of me.

Caroline's giggling mercifully transforms to dozing. In the reflection off the passenger-side mirror, I see that Caroline appears to be falling asleep, her cheek pressed against the backseat window. I've never seen her pass out without heaving first. Sonic and his pretty ride may have magical properties, after all. Please, let it last.

A heave-snore from the backseat announces that Caroline is indeed out. YES! Sweet Jesus, thank you.

"That's one problem solved," I tell Sonic.

He wants to know, "Why would you cut Sally's hair?" and now I'm like, Crap, is this the price of the sacrifice for Caroline passing out unexpectedly early—that Sonic has taken over the melancholy stage that usually follows Caroline's inquisitive one? "No girl wants a bad hair cut."

Okay, maybe he's not being melancholy because his sarcastic smile lets me know he's back to being standard-issue band-boy irony creature. Damn him that it somewhat makes me wanna jump his bones.

Still, I can tell he's looking for information, but I am not going into the Sally thing with him. I just can't. Seriously, does he not realize that I would have done anything to be in Sally's position before he told me to fuck off? He's asking the wrong girl about his ex-girl.

A white van barrels down the one-way street in the wrong direction, stopping in front of the fire hydrant directly ahead of the car.

"Oh, thank God," Sonic says. Interesting. We're in the divine intervention thing. Seriously, this thing is freaking me out. Fate?

A guy emerges from the van. Will you look at that? He's got two tails. Been a long time since I've seen him. He leans in Sonic's window and tells him, "Pop the hood and we'll try to jump-start."

"Yeah," Sonic says, like it's their routine. "Thanks, Tails."

Tails looks my way. "You look familiar," he tells me.

I grin. "Do I?"

"It's great to see ya again, Amy."

"You too."

"Knuckles could use some help in the van, if you don't mind."

"Sure."

I get out the same time Sonic does. I pass Randy leaning against the wall of the club and I give him a shove, just because. Then I step to the passenger side of the van and see band equipment in the back. I _knew _Sonic's band had a van! Why didn't I specify—_van_ that works?

The guy sitting in the driver side is none other than the rapper, Knuckles.

"Long time no see."

"Back at ya."

"Look, I know this is kinda sudden, but we need your help."

"For what?"

"We need you to take Sonic on a date."

Oh _hell_ no. "Can't help. Sorry."

"Lemme rephrase that. We hate the guts of Sonic's ex for dumping him and we'd like to give him a little…assistance with moving on with his life. So please, take the guy out tonight, see the city, I don't care. Just take our friend out tonight. We've seen that kiss between you and Sonic and have decided that we like you and that you'll be Sonic's salvation. No pressure or anything."

"Gee, as tempting as it sounds…"

Knuckles suddenly pulls out a crumpled fifty-dollar bill. "Sound tempting enough?"

Flattery could get him everywhere and I am all about salvation right now, but, "Can't," I tell him, though I'm tempted. Really tempted. Money and a date with Sonic, even though I hate his guts. I'm curious what would happen if I dared another leap toward Sonic's hand. "Sonic's giving me and my drunk friend a ride home. She's asleep in the back of the car now."

Knuckles replies, "We've got a mattress in the back of the van. We'll trade you. We'll get her home if you'll take Sonic tonight."

I decide some living is worth doing. I grab the fifty-dollar bill and say, "Done." I slip the fifty inside my shirt pocket, then scribble the directions to my house on Knuckles' hand. I tell him where to find the house key under the potted plant. And I'm not feeling frigid about Sonic at all.

So we're settled.

"It's great to see you again, Amy," Knuckles tells me.

I give him a hug before getting out of the van. Knuckles gets out too to help transport Caroline to the van. Problem now is that Caroline locked the damn doors, Sonic's keys are in the car and Caroline is surrounded by guys telling her to open the door and she's taking it as attention from admirers, meaning that she's currently in heaven. I stomp over to the car and push a guy out of the way and yell, "Open the damn car, bitch!" and Caroline frowns and starts moving again. I know she's saying something like, "You don't need to be so mean, Sub Z," or "Shut the hell up," as she's reaching her arm towards the door.

"Good," I yell at her. "Now remember what we learnt. Press the button down, then pull. Yes, good job." Everyone cheers as Knuckles picks Caroline up. I receive a pat on the back from Tails as he walks by and follows Tails.

"You better not hurt a hair on her head or else I am seriously killing you," I yell after them. Knuckles makes the mistake of turning as he's carrying Caroline over his back. Oh god! He just rammed her head into the car door.

Sonic, who is standing next to me, flinches slightly and says, "She'll be alright." She better be. I get inside the car. But once I'm inside, I have no chance to explain to Sonic the new order of this middle the night.

Because through the windshield, I see that Randy at the wall is doing the soul-brother shake with a new arrival who happens to be the mind-fucking guy who turned me Sub Z last year. And fuck, the Evil Ex has seen me and now he's at my side at the passenger door of the car and he's saying, "Hey baby, you ready to pick up where we left off?"


	5. Chapter 5

**5. Sonic**

I never thought Jessie would betray me like this. I have done nothing but love her and treat her right. I've stood by her side and defended her when people called her trash and said they didn't understand why I kept her. I thought that meant something. But no. Now, when I need her most, she's totally bailed. This is my chance to be with Amy, but she looks like she's about ready to bail me too.

Thankfully, Tails and Knuckles were there, and now Amy and I are getting back into the car, although I have no idea why she isn't going with Caroline. Now that we're in the car, I'm about to ask her, but this guy I've never seen before leans into Amy's window and says to her, "Hey, baby. Ready to pick up where we left off?"

What. The. Hell.

Okay, maybe I hang with a queercore crowd and all, but still—I never, ever, in a million zillion years would have imagined that a guy could use the phrase "hey baby" and mean it. He says it like he's whistling at some girl's boobs as she walks down the street. Who does that?

I expect Amy to put him right in his place. But instead, she freezes. She _looks away, _as if she can ignore her way out of it. By some logic, this should mean that she's now looking at me, since I'm 180 degrees away from our uninvited guest. But instead she focuses on the dashboard. And I guess I'm a little surprised, because it was just starting to look like we were going to go someplace together. That this wasn't just going to be a ride home. Now it's becoming a ride nowhere, and I'm sad that it's so out of my hands.

"Baby, I'm back," the guy goes on. "How about getting out of this heap and saying hello?"

Now, it's one thing to try to harass Amy out of my passenger seat. But to bring Jessie into it is completely uncalled for.

"Can I help you?" I ask.

He keeps looking at Amy as he talks to me. "Yeah, buddy. I just got back from Timbucktwo and I've been looking for this lady here. Car you spare her for a second?"

He reaches in the window, unlocks the door and opens it.

"We'll be right back," he goes on. And I'm about to tell Amy she doesn't have to do a thing. But right then she reaches over and pops off her seatbelt. I figure this is a decision on her part, though I'm not happy about it, but she fails to follow it up with another movement. She just stays in the car.

"Baby…," he purrs as he reaches in for her, as if she's a kid in a car seat. "I've missed you so much."

I am totally disgusted with the guy's perverted flirting. I turn the key in the ignition. Still no start. Tails comes over to my window, looks inside the car and says, "Problem here?"

Now it's _Tails _that Amy looks at. And for some reason, this snaps her back.

"Tal," she says with an edge usually reserved for cutlery, "you haven't missed me for one fucking minute. You have for one single second in your entire pathetic life missed me. You might have missed messing with my head, and you might have missed the satisfaction you so clearly got from demolishing me, but those are your emotions you're missing, not mine. I'm afraid I can't help you."

"C'mon baby," Tal says, leaning into her. She flinches back into the seat. I can sense Tails about to say something, but I beat him to it.

"Dude, nobody puts _baby _in a corner," I say. "Get the fuck out of my car."

"Mind your own business, asshole," he says, flashing a glare at me. I've had it now. I'm out and on the other side of the car. "I'll say this one more time. Get. Away. From. The car."

Tal holds his hands up, steps out of the doorway.

"Just giving the lady a choice," he says. "I didn't realize she was already ruining another guy's life. I hope you have better luck than I did."

"Douche-fag," Amy murmurs.

Tal laughs. "Piece of shit car: Five dollars. Amy probably likes it, cause she's always liked junk. Irony of her calling me a douche-fag:_ priceless."_

"Go. Away," Amy says.

"What? Are you afraid I'm going to tell the truth?" Tal looks at me now. I'm still glaring at him, my arms crossed and my body leaning against the car. "Don't be fooled, partner," he tells me. "She talks a great game, but when you actually get to the field, you realize it's fucking _empty._"

From somewhere beyond the hood, Knuckles yells, "Gentleman, start you engine!"

"I'd love to stay and chat," I say to Tal, "but we've got somewhere to be."

"Fine," Tal says, backing away a bit from the car. I'm already sitting in the driver's seat when he continues, "Just don't say I never warned you. You're dating the Tin Woman here. Look for a heart, you'll only come up with dead air."

I would never, not in a zillion years, believe that. I remember the death hugs she use to give me and the caring gestures she showed. Amy may not be showing it now, but she's got one of the biggest hearts ever.

"Thanks for the tip!" I call with mock cheer.

I cannot find a way to pray to God or some higher being. But I damn well feel comfortable praying to Jessie, and right at this moment I give her my evangelical all.

Please start. I will buy premium gas for the next month if you please, please, please start.

I turn the key in the ignition. There's a slight catch. And then…

Jessie's talking to me again. And she's saying, _Let's get the hell out of here. _

Tal reaches in the window and touches Amy on the cheek, holding there for a moment. I try hard not to put the petal to the metal then and rip his arm off.

"Baby, it's you," he says. Then he turns back to the sidewalk and heads right into the club.

"Seems like a nice guy," I say. Amy doesn't respond.

Tails leans into the window again.

"Don't worry about her friend," he says. "We'll get her home. You two have fun, you hear?"

"Sure thing," I tell him, even though Amy looks like the only use she has for the word _fun _is to make the word _funeral. _Knuckles shuts the hood and gives me a thumbs-up. He and Tails walks back to the van.

Amy hasn't moved to put her seatbelt back on. I don't know what this means. She turns to look at the door of the club.

"You okay?" I ask.

"I honestly have no idea," she says.

I put Jessie in reverse and give our parking space away to whoever comes next. I don't want Amy to consider getting out of the club and following the loser.

It's only when I've pulled out onto the street that I realize I have no idea where we're going.

"Do you want me to take you home?" I ask, although I'm hoping she doesn't.

I take her silence as a no, because wanting to go home is the kind of thing you speak up about.

I follow up with, "What do you want to do?"

This seems to me to be a pretty straightforward question. But she looks at me with this total incomprehension, like she's watching footage of the world being blown up, and I'm a little blurb on the corner of the screen saying what the weather is like outside.

I try again.

"You hungry?"

She just holds her hand to her mouth and looks out the front windshield.

"You thirsty?"

For all I know, she's counting streetlamps.

"Know any other bands playing?"

Tumbleweed blowing down the armrest between us.

"Wanna watch some nuns make out?"

Am I even speaking out loud?  
"Maybe see if E.T. is up for a threeway?"

This time she looks at me. And if she isn't exactly smiling, at least I think I see the potential for a smile there.

"Surprise me," she says. "I'll be satisfied with anything."

"Okay then," I say, swerving the car back toward the Lower East Side. Knuckles once told me of this cool dance club that doesn't have the drunk dweebs and losers. And they offer alcohol-free drinks.

As we're driving across Houston, Amy reaches over and turns on the radio. A black-lipsticked oldie: The Cure, "Pictures of You"—track four of my Breakup Desolation Mix. This, and every song on this disc, is dedicated to Sally…

And if this is the soundtrack, my mind and my broken heart collaborate and provide me with the movie—that night she was so tired she said she needed to lie down, so she climbed over the seat and laid out on the back. I thought I'd lost her, but then five minutes later my cell phone rang and it was her, calling me from my own backseat. In a sleepy voice she told me how safe and comfortable she felt, how she was remembering all those late-night drives back from vacation, and how she'd stretch herself out and feel like her parents were driving her bed, nothing unusual about the movement of the road under the wheels and the tree branches waving across the windshield. She said those moments made her feel like the car was home, and maybe that's how I made her feel, too.

Eventually she fell asleep, but I kept the phone against my ear, lulled by her breathing, and her breathing again in the background. And yes, it felt like home. Like everything belonged exactly where it was.

"I so don't need this right now," Amy says. But she doesn't change the song.

"Have you ever thought about their name?" I ask, just to make conversation. "I mean, for what?"

"What are you talking about?"

"The Cure. What do they think they're the cure for? Happiness?"

"This coming from the guitarist for the Sonic Band?"

And I can't help it. I think, _Wow, she knows our name. _

"Knuckles is thinking of changing it to the Knuckies," I tell her.

"Oh god no. How 'bout simply The Fuck Offs or something?"

"Knuckles would like the Fuck Ons."

"Wouldn't Fuck On be simpler?"

"Maybe one word? Fuckon?"

"The Friendly Fuckons?"

"My Fuckon or Yours?"

"Why is he such a fucking Fuckon?"

I look at her. "Is that a band name or a statement?"

"He had no right to do that. None."

We break into silence again. I lob a question right into it.

"Who is he, then?"

"An ex," she says, slumping back in the seat a little. "_The_ ex, I guess."

"Like Sally," I say, relating.

She sits up and gives me a purely evil glance. "No. Not like Sally at all. This was real."

I pause for a second, listen to our breakup playing under the conversation.

"That was mean," I say. "You have no idea."

"Neither do you. So let's drop it. I'm supposed to show you a good time."

I take this last sentence as a kind of apology. Mostly because that's what I want it to be.

I'm winding through the Lower East Side now, on the street that have names and not numbers. The night is still very much young here, hipster congregants exhaling their smoke from sidewalk square to sidewalk square. I find a parking space on the darker side of Ludlow, then convince Amy to retrace Jessie's steps until we're in front of a pink door.

"Camera Obscura?" Amy asks.

I nod.

"Bring on the dance floor," she says.

I'm not sure if I'm supposed to knock or just open the door. The answer is given to me in the form of a burly bouncer dressed in a Playboy Bunny outfit. Odd.

"ID?" he asks.

I pull out mine, and so does Amy. But then I see her eyes go wide in a realization of something. And then I see it. I see it like I just put on glasses. Pain flashes in her eyes. What could she have realized to have so much pain in such innocent eyes? And did I just think that? But damn, I was curious to know more about the matured Amy standing in front of me.


	6. Chapter 6

Sorry for the complications. Here's the real version.

**

* * *

6. Amy**

_Oh crap._ CRAP CRAP CRAP CRAAAAAAAAP!!!!!!!!!!!! I mailed the letter turning down my job offer in Brown just this morning. And only now, in the middle of the night, or morning, do I get it. I signed up for _Kibbutz_, which is South Africa: BIG FRIKIN MISTAKE. Like, HUGE. What was I thinking? So Tal and I have broken up five times over the last three years. Somehow in the back of my mind was the thought that either (1) Tal and I would work things out next time, and what better place to do that than away from families and friends in a commune on the flip side of the world, or (2) we wouldn't work things out yet again, but I'd be the best freakin' worker that _kibbutz_ had ever seen; and as a bonus, Tal would die of jealousy when I fell in love with some beautiful surfer boy from Capetown and left Tal weeding gardens while I bailed on the _kibbutz_ to backpack across the world with my new surfer love who hopefully would have a pretty-looking name like Ndgijo.

Except that would never happen to me. How did such a reputedly smart girl get herself in this predicament, on the brink of adulthood, with no future to grab on to? I should have stayed with the Sonic Team. I had a future planned out then. These last few weeks I've been missing Tal as much as I've been moaning him as the Evil Ex. I've held onto the hope of surprising him by showing up in South Africa, yet when he was RIGHT THERE in front of me in Manhattan, what did I do? I froze. Suddenly all my fantasies of reconciliation were gone, suddenly all I could remember was how I was never good enough for him. Tal wasn't a lying cheating skank like Sally, but who had I been kidding? He had been, as Caroline liked to remind me, a "controlling fuckface." So right there, next to the poor schmuck I reacquainted myself to by making out with him, I finally had the moment of clarity that Caroline and my friends have been waiting for me to have since, well, nine years ago: ENOUGH! Caroline had been right all along. Tal and I are better off living our lives apart from each other.

I'm trying to pay attention to Sonic but I can't get Tal's words in front of the club off repeat playback in my mind: _She talks a great game, but when you actually get to the field, you realize it's freaking empty._

The Tin Woman! Tal called me a fucking Tin Woman! I lost my virginity to him and devoted myself to him for so many damn years, and that's his review of me? At least I can be grateful that when Tal took off from South Africa back to Manhattan without telling anybody, he couldn't possibly have received my letter yet; I only just mailed it. I was so hell-bent on the sentiment, I posted the letter international fucking snail mail when I could have just e-mailed him. I drew smiley faces on the outside of the envelope! Oh god, I want to be sick right now. Amy, why are you such a regression bitch? One night last weekend spent holding Caroline's quills back while she puked in the toilet, feeling lonely and lost—for me, not for Caroline; she had an army of dudes outside the bathroom waiting for her to sober up—and I let the dark side of my mind, the Tal side, win out. As Caroline slept it off later that night in the extra twin bed that's been in my room for her ever since nine years ago, I wrote to Tal. Was it all the caffeine I consumed riding the night out with Caroline, or the leftover haze of the reggae club where we'd passed the night? Secondhand smoke may be deadlier than firsthand straightedge inhale, at least when it comes to impairing my ability to distinguish between lonely longing for the Evil Ex and actually trying to get back together with him.

I hope Tal never finds out the Tin Woman was ready to compromise. I didn't outright say I wanted to get back together. But I said I was willing to consider it. I could learn to care about saving the sea otter and only drinking fair-trade coffee, not that I like coffee. I could believe that Tal and his brothers in Tel Aviv actually have talent and will become the next big thing, an older, punk infused, politicized version of Hanson. I would at least consider living with his miserable controlling psychotic mother in Tel Aviv once Tal starts his mandatory Israeli Army service next year, and oh, alright fine, she could teach me how to cook the meals he likes (which, may I tell you are just plain gross) and how to hang lines on a line in the sun so his sheets would always be crisp and fresh. I was professing that I can change! That fucking letter!

But no, I can't change. I shouldn't change.

Caroline may be a lush and a slut but she's not a complete moron. She begged me not to post the letter, but I wouldn't listen to her. "What the hell do you have to change for? She said. "He should fucking change, uptight bastard. Why are you doing this? If you need some end-of-adolescence protest, couldn't you just wreck somebody's car or something? Are you really going to put us through you and Tal, the nightmare couple, one more time? And lose out on Brown for it? Amy, you know there's someone else, don't you?" Only I didn't believe her—until tonight.

Why the hell is it always me who goes through this? I know now that Tal isn't in it for _me._ He's in it for whatever reasons guys have for playing with girls' hearts. Then there's Sonic, who never had any affection for me at all. What the hell? Is it because I'm too clingy? Is that it? Did I do something really really bad and now I'm paying for it? I don't remember doing anything bad that deserves so much rejection. Gimme a break, god!

"Amy?" the Playboy Bunny bouncer responses to my silence, which is no small relief because I don't have a fake ID. When you are the heir of a well-known major record label, it tends not to be necessary at most clubs in Lower Manhattan.

"Toni?" I say. S/he grabs me in a hug. Toni interned for my teacher/tutor last year while deciding whether s/he wanted to pursue a career in the music industry; s/he was also my biggest advocate in my futile campaign (thus far) to convince my the current supervisor of the record label (who is my teacher) to produce an all-punk band tribute to the Spice Girls. "Still working on that demo?"

S/he pulls out a CD strapped inside the bushy tail at her back. "Just finished it! Will you pass it on?"

"Sure," I say.

"Go right on over to the VIP area," Toni says. "I'll make sure your drinks are on the house."

"I don't drink," I remind Toni.

"Oh, live a little," s/he says, bumping me at the hip.

"Miss Straight Edge, bend 'round the corner for once in your life." Toni turns to Sonic. "Have fun kids."

We sit down at a small table that miraculously vacated of bodies as we approached it. For heaven's sake, my heart actually flutters for a moment when Sonic pulls out the wooden chair for me. Who does that? And why does that simple gesture for a moment make me forget that I am REALLY PISSED OFF and MY LIFE IS OVER. I am distracted from my Tal malaise with Sonic's breathing. What the hell? And I can't believe myself when I feel the crack of a smile on my lips and a non-frigid buzz spread through my body. In the flashing neon lights, and with the distraction of the stage show, I finally have the opportunity to truly appraise Sonic. I admire his vintage gas station attendant jacket with the name 'Salvatore' stencilled under the Texaco logo, and I admit to wanting to run my fingers through his long blue quills that I've seen more than his face for the eight years of knowing him. He has the very same cocky smile he always had stencilled on his face too, despite the Sally hangover.

Sonic waves thanks in Toni's direction at the door. He says, "Nice seats your friend hooked us up with. I have to admit, between your drunk girlfriend and your nice-car-insulting ex-boyfriend, it's a relief to see you have some nice friends." He winks at me, the same way he always did when encouraging someone or simply using his trademark gestures. Why won't that kind smile leave his face? Although he deserves it completely for insulting me like crazy ten years ago, I know that if we are going to make it through this night/morning/whatever we have going, eventually I am going to have to tell him about Sally and that smile will be gone and I don't want to be the person responsible of killing it, although I really do want to be that person.

I don't owe him an explanation or anything but I do say, "I'm sorry about Tal." Only what I'm really sorry about is what I said about Sally, but I can't find it in myself to apologize about that. Yet.

"Want to tell me about it?"

"About what?"

"The Ex?"

Is this what happens on dates? You kiss before you've met, then talk about why your previous relationships failed? I'm stumped. The only guy I've ever been with is Tal (Sonic doesn't count), and his idea of a date was watching _Schindler's List_ in his dorm room at Columbia. Besides the random incident with Sonic, I've never even kissed anyone besides Tal.

And I really don't want to talk about him. I want to forget I ever entertained the notion of getting back together with him. I want to forget I've thrown away my only future available and that now I have to come up with a whole new plan. So I tell Sonic, "I know how to drive a stick shift." Because I know Sally can't.

"So you're saying you could drive Jessie back to Jersey tonight, assuming she'll start again?"

"Who's Jessie?"

"The car."

"You have a name for your car? Please don't tell me you name your shoes something too."

"Unfortunately," he says with a wink, "I've yet to find the perfect names for them, so it's in this netherworld of nameless identity right now. But if you think up a good name, let me know. We'd like something a little exotic, like maybe Julio and Julia."

Frigid can thaw, right?

Sonic adds, "Knuckles wanted to name our band Dickache. What do you think?"

"Sorry, I'm stuck on The Fuck Offs. Catchy. The sales reps at Wal-Mart will love it."

Our conversation is interrupted by a new act on the stage. Two of Toni's soul sisters are doing an onstage grind to "Edelweiss," making the previous nun performers seem like…well, nuns. Sonic stands up and offers his hand to me. I have no idea what he wants, but what the hell? I take his hand anyway, and he pulls me up on my feet then presses against me for a slow dance. It's like we're in a dream where he's Christopher Plummer and I'm Julie Andrews and we're dancing on the marble floor of an Austrian terrace garden. Somehow my head presses against Sonic's chest and in this moment I am forgetting about time and Tal because maybe my life isn't over. Maybe it's only beginning.

I shiver at that thought and in response Sonic takes his jacket off and places it around my shoulders. I feel safe and not cold from the vibe the jacket gives off. I also feel fairly confident that the original Texaco Salvatore was a good family man, with perhaps a propensity for wearing his wife's panties and betting his kids' college money at the track, but otherwise a solid dude.

I wake up from the dance dream when the audience applauds the end of the stage performance and Sonic feels pressed too close to me without the music going. Sonic/Salvatore/Christopher Plummer/lovely dancing-partner man can't be real. It's not possible. I know. I've been crushed by him ten years ago. Better to end this dream before it becomes a nightmare, like before.

"Why are you so damn _nice?"_ I ask, and shove Sonic away. I don't bother to acknowledge his shocked expression. Score, Amy. I have killed his smile, and I didn't even tell him about Sally. "I gotta pee."

I run away, toward the bathroom. A few people are waiting at the door, but with a single finger snap from Toni, the line disperses. I don't really have to use the bathroom. I need to think. I need to sleep. I need Caroline to be sober so I can talk to her. This morning, my life seemed so clear. Turn down Brown, check. Go into the city to see the band Caroline likes, check. This night was suppose to end like any other night out with Caroline—watch her hook up with a guy, and get her home safely. Check. I'm not that girl who randomly meets a guy one night and has her life change. Well, if it's Sonic, then that's a different case, I guess. But still. What is Sonic doing here with me anyways? Wasn't he the one who was running away from me years ago? The one who didn't have any sort of affection for me?

I step inside the bathroom as the previous occupant leaves. I clean the toilet with a paper towel, then sit down on it. A trail of graffiti is written down the wall next to the toilet.

_Jimmy gives good head. Climb ev'ry Mountain, indeed. _(Illustrated.)

_Happiness serves hardly any other purpose than to make unhappiness possible. –Proust_

_You're the one for my, fatty. –Morrissey_

_I want it that way_. –_Backstreet Boys (_Also illustrated, much more lewd than the Jimmy picture, and finer drawing skills.)

_Claire, meet me on Rivington in front of the candy store after the show. You bring the Pez. You know._

_Psst—Sitting on the john and wondering when this night will end? Answer: NEVER. Where's Fluffy, unannounced show, TONIGHT, after the von Trapp massacre, before dawn rises. Be on the square, ayyyy…._

There's no date written on the wall but the black-marker handwriting looks fresh. I'm curious whose executive decision it was to name the toilet "the john," anyway? But could the show be tonight? I only WORSHIP Where's Fluffy. They turned down my teacher to sign up with Uncle Lou's indie label. (Just so ya know, my teacher and Uncle Lou hate each other's guts) They could make me pogo-stick dance all night. They could make me forget I want to crawl into my bed and hide under the covers, and that I wasted nine years of my life on Tal and that I'm on a date with a good guy who I positively hate but love at the same and I've given him more mixed signals than a dyslexic Morse code operator.

…What? I can't still love him. Shit. No wonder I'm acting so damn weird. This is really bad. Do I dare show my face back at the table to Sonic and tell him about Where's Fluffy? I know he's a fan, cause I swiped the last make-up mix he burned for Sally that led off with Where's Fluffy track, "Take Me Back, Bitch." God, he made great playlists for her. Tal's mixes for me were all Dylan and Yma Sumac crap that I didn't even understand. Sonic could mix Cesaria Evora to Wilco to Ani followed by Rancid, capped off with Patsy Cline blending into a Fugazi finale. Although at some point, if our whatever-it-is-happening-this-night progresses, I'll have to re-educate Sonic on the poor use of Patti Smith and Velvet Underground tracks on lovesick playlists. Hate them. Patti Smith was a poser suck-up, and Lou Reed was just a plain ass.

Maybe Tal called it right—I should have been more grateful for him. No other guy besides Tal would ever put up with me.

Caroline may be passed out in Tails' van right now, but I know what she would say to me now: "Tal is NOT right. And go back out there and give this a better shot. You can do this. Bitch, get the fuck back out there."

I pick up the black Sharpie pen dangling from a string attached to the bathroom mirror and scribble my contribution to the graffiti trail on the wall:

_The Cure. For the Ex's? I'm sorry, Sonic. You know. Will you kiss me again?_

I splash some cold water on my face at the bathroom sink and take a deep breath. Caroline's right, I can do this. Time to go back out there and make this right. I am brand-new. I can change. Only not for Tal. For me.


	7. Chapter 7

**7. Sonic**

I am doing everything right. And it is getting the exact right reaction. This is like a miracle to me.

I am seriously intimidated to be in the VIP section. I am a little mesmerized by the left nun, who is actually playing the acoustic guitar for "Edelweiss" and twirling her pasties at the same time. I am afraid of the way Amy's looking at me like I have a chance. But somehow I manage to step out of my seat and get her to step out of her seat. I know exactly where to put my hands and where to put her body and just like that we are locked together in a moment and it is, remarkably, the exact right thing for the moment to be.

I am not used to this.

I don't even notice when the music ends, I am so in my own music. But then the record scratches, the DJ bobbles, the moment crashes, the right turns wrong and Amy pushes me away and spits the word _nice_ out at me, then runs to pee.

I am not used to this either. But I expect it more.

I watch as she goes. Tony/Toni/Toné acts as her fairy godmotherfather, waving a Playboy Bunny air freshener in the air to part the crowd around the Laydies' Room (as opposed to the Laddies' Room, which seems, from the exasperated looks of the people on line, to be currently occupied by a Tantric pair). The nuns on stage have now broken all of their habits, and are parading around in sprigs of what I can only imagine is edelweiss. I can see a lonely goatherd gawking from the front row.

This should divert me, but my mind keeps returning to a simple, scary fact:

I am liking Amy.

I am liking the way she's friends with Playboygirl Bunnies. I am liking the way she knows how to drive stick. I am liking that I have to earn her smiles and laughs. I am liking how long her quills have grown. I am liking the way she kissed me. I am liking the way she seems to be able to get past the past. I could learn from that. I am liking that I can throw any kind of sentence at her without worrying it's too out there.

I am liking her, the way I did ten years ago.

I could easily start to obese (or, at least, stress) about this, but luckily another diversion soon joins me at the table. It's Tony/Toni/Toné, dressed now as a priest. I mean, he's dressed as a woman dressed as a priest.

"I'm on in ten minutes," she says, to explain the costume change. "Is Amy still powdering?"

"She's the lulu of the loo."

"Perfect! Now us girls can chat." She bows her head in my direction, ready to listen, but even readier to ask. "How long have the two of you been the two of you?"

I look at the clock. "About an hour, including transportation.

Tony/Toni/Toné whistles her appreciation. "That's four times as long as any of _my_ relationships have lasted."

"Well, this one might not be setting any new world records," I find myself saying.

"No!" Tony/Toni/Toné exclaims. "I saw the two of you canoodling. You're a regular Johnny Castle."

I have no idea who Johnny Castle is, but I definitely approve of the name.

Tony/Toni/Toné places her palms together and looks at me with a kindness that has no sexuality. "Do you want to talk about it?"

"Yes. No. I don't know."

"How long has it been since your last confession?"

"Three weeks and three days ago, I guess."

"And what was that confession?"

"'I love you.'"

"That's a serious one. And how was it received?"

"Vow of silence. And chastity, until the next guy came along."

"So what do you have to confess now?"

I don't know why I'm saying any of this, except that it's the truth.

"I'm confessing that I don't know if I'm ready for this."

"What is 'this'?"

Being open. Being hurt. Liking. Not being liked. See the flicker on. Leaping. Falling. Crashing.

"Amy. I don't know if I'm ready for Amy."

Tony/Toni/Toné smiles, her teeth the same white as her collar.

"There's no such thing as ready," she says. "There's only willing.. I have all the proof I need. The proof is always in the dancing."

Her glance escapes from me for a second. I follow it and see Amy emerging from the Laydies' Room. Tony/Toni/Toné stands up from her chair.

Amy isn't looking over to the table—not looking over to me, I figure. She doesn't see Tony/Toni/Toné slip away backstage. She doesn't see me waiting for her.

She sits down again, looking less rattled now.

"You look refreshed," I tell her. Then I can't help myself, adding, "Everything okay? Was it something I said? Or was my Johnny Castle impression no good?"

She twinkles at Johnny Castle.

Thank you, Tony/Toni/Toné.

"Look," she says, raising her Tina Colada, "I owe you a kind of explanation. I know you probably think I'm a horrid bitch from the planet Schizophrenia, but I'm honestly not trying to mess with your head. I'm just messing with my own head and I seem to have dragged you along for the ride. I think you're nice to me, which scares the crap out of me. Because when a guy's a jerk, it's easier because you know exactly where you stand. Since trust isn't an option, you don't have to get all freaked out about maybe having to trust him. Right now I am thinking about ten things at the same time, and at least four of those things have to do with you. If you want to leave right now and drive home and forget my name and forget what I look like, I wouldn't blame you in the least. But what I'm trying to say is that if you did that I would be sorry. And not just sorry in an I-apologize-I'm-so-sorry way, but in a sorry in a sad-that-something-that-could've-happened-didn't way. That's it. You can go now. Or we could stay for Where's Fluffy when Toni's set is over. I think they're playing a surprise show here tonight."

Then, finally, she takes a sip of her drink. A gulp, really.

Forget her? I was never able to for ten years.

I take a deep breath and say: "My jacket looks good on you."

She puts the glass down. Stares at me. And I think, _Fine, I'm a freak. _

So be it.

"No," I go on. "It does. And if I left, you'd probably want to give my jacket back. And if you did, I wouldn't be able to put it on, because the whole time I'd be knowing how perfectly it fit on you. How even thought he sleeves are ridiculously too long and the collar is all screwed up. And for all I know some guy named Salvatore is going to come in this very club two minutes later and say, "Hey, that's my jacket" and strike up a conversation and sweep you off your feet away from me—even though all those things are true or possibly true. I just can't ruin the picture of you sitting there across from me wearing my jacket better than I or anyone else ever could. If I don't owe it to you and I don't owe it to me, I at least owe it to Salvatore."

There. I've said everything I wanted to say without actually having to use the words I should have used ten years ago: _please stay. _

"Pick up your drink," Amy tells me.

I do.

She clinks her glass against mine.

"Cheers."

"_Salud,_" I reply.

"_L'chaim._"

"Top o' the morning to ya."

"_Sto lat."_

"May the road rise to meet you."

…and we go on like this until Tony/Toni/Toné appears onstage to purr the filthiest 'Do Re Mi' that Manhattan has ever seen.

People look at us every now and them, I guess some of them know Amy, or at least who she is. I guess me too, since I am Sonic the hedgehog, saviour of this world. Right now, though, I'm just a guy with Amy. And that's how I want it to be. It was always like that. To Amy, I was always me. Nothing else mattered. How could I have ever given her up?

All the other things I am—they're too complicated. I can feel them lying in wait, planning their return.


	8. Chapter 8

**8. Amy**

"Let's say there was a girl who was madly in love with you, and you knew it, but you didn't love her back. What would you do?"

This question has actually escaped my mouth. Why the hell would I want to bring up our odd relationship years ago? Total downer. Perhaps it's not that I'm frigid—it's that once I decide I like a guy, I turn into a raging idiot, unfit for public appearances. Sonic knew that much already, from the 'old days.' I wish Caroline could be here now, hiding out in a corner, feeding me the lines. Although Caroline-as-inspiration could easily land me right back in the bathroom, on my knees, and not in prayer. Which as a basic premise isn't so objectionable, but now that I'm trying to get in sync with time, I need more of it than Caroline generally requires to reach room temperature with a guy.

Sonic answers, "Honestly, I have no idea. Wouldn't want to hurt anyone's feelings, but if I can't love her, then I can't love her. After all, you can't choose love. It chooses you. So, I guess I'd try to break it down to her as quickly and kind as possible."

He doesn't realize the question was in reference to a situation that has already happened between the two of us. Part of me is glad for that, but then again I really want to bitch off at him for breaking my heart so many times. The best part is, he doesn't even realize that he has _already_ put down a girl's fantasies and goals and reasons of life. And that would be me. I'd be more than a raging idiot if I told him this.

The stage acts are over and nuns have converted to stagehands as they transform the set for the next show. We've hit the jackpot, because the Where's Fluffy unannounced show is most certainly going on next after the stage is converted—widened, barricaded, made ready for the coming apocalypse sure to be wrought by the leathered and chained, tunnelled, tattooed, and pierced punk crowd now streaming into this place. It's got to be close to three in the morning, because it's the die-hard wave coming in, amped from a night of power-punk club-hopping, ready for the ultimate nightcap. By all logic, I should be home now, sitting up in my twin bed and flicking through channels in the dark while Caroline heaves through her inebriated slumber in her bed across from me. I recognize several people that were at Crazy Lou's earlier, and I know we're all following the same yellow brick road, looking for that ultimate band, that ultimate night to remember. Crazy Lou himself has even arrived, I can see him at the bar chatting up Toni. I can only pray hard that Toni's almighty powers extend to her denying Tal entrance should he follow Lou here tonight, or that Tal will be too jet-lagged for the infinite Manhattan night.

Or maybe prayer isn't necessary and my moment of clarity was real and true and Tal is not a threat because I am wearing this jacket that says Salvatore and I am deep into this night with Sonic (even though I still hate him, and strongly adore him). While Tal may not yet have wholly receded to the farthest reaches of my subconscious past—I can feel the present bitter taste of his nearness despite the sweetness of the Tina Colada I am drinking—I am here and I am now and there's nowhere I'd rather be. Only, where did Sonic go?

He said I wear his jacket better than he or anyone else ever could. So why isn't he going for an encore Johnny Castle performance with me instead of sitting opposite me acting all casual, looking perhaps a little distracted? He could at least do me the courtesy of pretending that he's as interested in learning as much about the new me as I'd like to know about the new him. Live, _everything. _Like, _NOW!_

If Caroline was here, she'd give me her _Patience, grasshopper_ speech. But she's not and I am left to wonder on my own; how does this work, the getting to know a new guy I already knew before without revealing too much desperation for his undivided attention? It's not that I wanted it; it just made things awkward for me if he isn't paying attention.

It helps that the club has gone from full to packed, because the energy and noise help drown out what is fast becoming a sinking ship between Sonic and me, probably courtesy of me and the trying-too-hard conversation. I came back from the bathroom, we had virgin drinks along with toasted clinks, but I seem to have made the ultimate mistake. I try to learn something about him (isn't that what you do?), dig a little deeper, and I'm getting sucked down fast into the vortex of Awkward First Date.

"So, what's new with the team?" I ask him. Just to say something. Sonic was so with me a while ago, but now without the diversion of a stage show, it's like the pendulum is swinging perilously in the wrong direction for us, and I don't know if it's that something changed, or I said something stupid again, or I just dared to fly too close to the sun in my desire to thaw.

"Same as always," Sonic mumbles.

_And what exactly is the same as always, Sonic?_

"How about your hero life?" I ask him.

"Dangerous and fun."

Brick. Fucking. Wall.

Basic quiz-show format isn't working here, so I take inspiration from the divine beings that have preformed on this stage this evening. I sing this next question, all fake Julie Andrews crap operetta stylee: "Refresh my mind. Care to name a few of your favourite things?"

His half smile creeps back. "Running, chilidogs, my shoes, kicking Eggman's butt and my iPod."

I rest my case.

Did DJ Irony _plan_ to spin "Heaven Knows I'm Miserable Now" by The Smiths right now to appease the crowd during the interim stage setup between acts, or is it just coincidence.

What did I miss? What changed?

I take one last shot. Come back to Mama, Sonic. You can do it.

"Last moment of true happiness you experienced?" I ask him.

"Sometime before three weeks, three days ago…"

And he's gone again. Ohhhhhhh………………

Seriously, I know he deserves being dumped and all, but this is just too obsessive. The air is hot here from the surge of people coming in and I watch him watching the door and I realize he's scared Sally is going to show. She probably will. An underground band about to hit it big performing in the middle of the night for a secret show, surely there's an almost-famous musician about to come onstage looking for some groupie Sally love.

I feel for Sonic. Though I really don't want to admit that. He doesn't know yet that he'll be okay without her. Part of me wonders if I should even bother here. The other part of me wants to scream at him: _Serves you right, asshole! Anyways, what did you see in her? Why did you waste your life on her? Why'd you make me waste mine?_

Only I already know the answers to the quiz show. If I can suck it up enough to look past the obvious, I know that there's this other Sally, this girl who can show a guy a good time without the Caroline variety hangover, make him feel wanted and special until her attention inevitably wanes, this girl who will kick ass at FIT next year, this girl who will have your back, no questions asked.

_But I did that._

Like it mattered. I was rejected cause I wasn't Sally. Simple as that. I'm well over it now, though.

In Sonic's absence of words and his vacant look, I am remembering the time in the public bathroom when I had been drying my hands with a paper towel that Sally had snatched out of my hands.

"You realize you've been drying your hands for about three straight minutes now? You've practically parched your skin. You okay?" And just like that I came out with it: "I'm late."

"You're paranoid," Caroline had said when I told her, while Tal had said, "Don't you dare make any decisions without consulting me first." But it was Sally who grabbed my arm and said, "C'mon." It was Sally who knew the strictly Jersey public bus that could take us to the nearby CVS and not to the city, Sally who waited outside the bathroom for me at Starbucks while I took the test, Sally who shoved me in the chest afterward and said, "Be careful next time, bitch." It was Sally who stood in line to buy me a Frappuccino with her back at me, knowing I wouldn't want her to see me cry. And I know we really don't like each other except for having known each other since childhood, and I know she is a lying cheating skank because how could she do what she did to this guy?; but I also know there is like some girl code I should be obeying and treading into new dangerous territory with her castoff, so maybe that's why it's Sonic who's suddenly gone all frigid?

The Smiths song ends, to a smattering of applause coming from the direction of the bathrooms. The cocktail bunny has responded to the urgent calls of nature of a long line of ladies waiting for the loo and unlocked the bathroom door with the key hanging from the chain around her neck. Even with the dark lighting and through the beads separating the bathroom area from the club, it's clear that it's Rouge the bat (oh my god, get a shirt that covers woman!) inside the arms of Knuckles, who happens to be here now. They're standing against the red all, locked in one of those deep, soul-enjoined kisses that can only cause observes of the kiss to have a crisis of deep, soul-searching envy.

Sonic finally laughs again, and my heart tries not to leap.

"That's our Knuckie!"

As their mouths disengage, Knuckles plucks a strand of hair from Rouge's face and twirls it through his fingers. With his over hand, he waves hello to the exasperated line of ladies.

I point out, "Damn, even from here, you can see the smile on his face."

"Haha. Can you see Rouge's too?"

"Hell yeah. It's scary to look at. So, they're together, huh?"

"Yeah. Never would have expected it. You know Knuckles, after all. Hot headed and short-tempered he is, though, Rouge still had it in her to love him. Now _that_ was something no one expected. Ya know, Knuckles is the reason our band doesn't have a drummer."

"How's that?" We're going again. Thank you, Knuckles, you stud, thank you.

"We used to have a great drummer. The guy killed, he was so good. Then Knuckles 'turned' him. The dude didn't even know he liked boys before—"

"Oh, he knew." Because they always do, whether or not they'll admit it.

Sonic shrugs. "Could be. But Knuckles brought him out. He would rather be with Rouge, after all, but he was seriously freaked out by the attention from another guy."

"Understandable."

"Yep."

Knuckles is trailing Rouge by the hand now, and they are snaking their way through the club. Their performance has merited the offering of two coveted barstools from the packed bar area. The dynamic duo take these offerings and haul them over to our table and sit themselves down.

"Nice show," I tell Knuckles.

"Wasn't it?" Rouge laughs. "It certainly has been a while, hasn't it, Amy Rose? And what a coincidence too. Knuckles tells me you met at Lou's bar?"

"Got that right. Yes, it has been a while. What's new with you?"

"Not much. Only Knuckie here." She pats his head playfully, making Knuckles erupt a small irritation.

"Hey," Rouge continues as Knuckles attempts to lecture her. "You heard that Where's Fluffy is here, yeah?"

I nod, and then Knuckles forgets that he's supposed to be angry and he says, "Where the fuck is Fluffy, anyways? WHERE'S FUCKING FLUFFY! He plays mock drums on the table and Sonic lifts his eyebrow at me and gives me a knowing smile. For a flash lightning stroke of a moment, I suspect the time-out is ending and we might be getting back in the game.

And then our ref sashays to our table like the beauty queen s/he is and addresses Sonic like they're old sorority sisters: "Girl, be a dear and help me with some of this stage equipment, will you?" Sonic jumps to his feet like he's been waiting for Toni's salvation all along. Good—maybe Toni can share some PMS elixir with Sonic and send him back revived.

"WHERE'S FLUFFY!" Knuckles shouts. He pats my in excitement then raises his arms like he's Rocky. Rouge looks at me and rolls her eyes at him, making me smile in response. "WHERE'S FUCKING FLUFFY!"

Exactly. That was the reaction I expected from Sonic when I told him about the show. I mean, they're only the best punk band out there. Where's Fluffy can actually play instead of just wail like pop-punk goof-offs. They sing everything right about everything wrong to remind listeners what's worth fighting for. Where's Fluffy are the real deal, and if there is anything between me and Sonic, it will be determined when the show starts, if we're front and center in jumping throttling exhilaration together, fist-waving and shouting and shouting 'oi oi oi' at all the right moments, in sync. So to speak.

The mosh pit will reveal all the answers. The mosh pit never lies.


	9. Chapter 9

**9. Sonic**

Things are going so well. We're volleying words back and forth. Everything she says, I have something I can say back. We're sparking, and part of me just wants to sit back and watch. We're clicking, again. Not because a part of me is fitting into a part of her. But because our words are clicking into each other to form sentences and our sentences are clicking into each other to form dialogue and our dialogues are clicking together to form this scene from this ongoing movie that's as comfortable as it is unrehearsed. How could I have given this us?

I know she's holding back a little. I know she keeps shooting me questions so I won't get too close to her answers. That's fine. Who is she now, really? Fuck if I know. But I care. Yeah, I'm starting to care a whole lot.

The club is really packed now, filled with that pre-gig mix of anticipation and extreme impatience. Knuckles is so completely Knuckles and ramps himself over to us to lead the WHERE IS FLUFFY? cheer. Tony/Toni/Toné comes over and wants me to help with some gear. I look at Amy and almost ask if she's going to miss me while I'm gone. But I don't want to push it.

It's really cool to be in the realm of Fluffy, even if I can't see any of the guys and all I'm doing is making sure the mics work. Just to be standing on their stage is a bit of a rush. As I'm testing 1-2-3, I hear a few 'Oh my gods!' and 'he's cuter than on television' here and there. Yeah, I'm famous. Hate to break it to ya girls, but I'm considering myself taken.

It's all so surreal. And suddenly I'm wanting to tell Sally about it. Which is so damn wrong, but it's not the kind of thought that's a choice. Where's Fluffy was the second show we went to, and the sixth, and the eleventh, and the fourteenth. She'd never heard of them, so I dragged her well past midnight to see them at Maxwell's. She was so skeptical of bands she never heard of—like she couldn't get a buzz if there hadn't been some buzz. Where's Fluffy convinced her, though. She got it on the first song and wasn't afraid to show it. She whopped and hacksawed and knifed up and hair-flalied nonstop for the full 110 rpm set. Afterward she said, "Man, those guys are hot," and I was entirely jealous of them, until she said, "But not as hot as you right now" and I became a firework waiting to happen. But that wasn't all. I'm thinking about the sixth time. I was dancing, doing my thing, and she just stopped for a moment, looking at me. And I screamed, "What?" and she screamed back, "You have to stop that," and I screamed "What?" and she told me, "You're still here. You have to go farther than that." And at first I didn't get it, but then I realized that she was right; I wasn't giving myself up to the music. I was looking at the people around me. I was self-conscious. I was contexting every single note. "Just let go," she yelled. And at first I couldn't since I was so grounded in the trying. But then the band lurched into Dead Voter and for the first time ever I freed myself from everything but the chords. I didn't think about Sally—she had hidden herself behind the song, orchestrating it all. After we were done, sweat-glazed and panting, we didn't have to say a word. We just looked at each other and there was this recognition. She'd pushed me and I'd gotten there. I was grateful. Am grateful.

I look at the crowd for a moment, trying to find her again. I know she's there somewhere, even if she's not in the room. Even if she's making out with some other guy in some other club without one single synapse connecting a thought of me.

"Wake the hell up!" some guy pressing against the stage says, and I realize that my hands have fallen idle. Like I can't think of Sally and do anything else at the same time. Which is such a lie.

I finish the connections. The mics are ready for the assault. Tony/Toni/Toné nods and the lights dim. I head off, but not before I catch the nod of Evan E., Fluffy's drummer. I smile and nod back, then press back into the crowd. I've lost track of Amy, lost sight of where our table used to be. All the tables have been shoved aside now.

Fuse is lit

Fuse is burning.

Ready.

Set.

Explode.

The guitars rampage. The drums batter. Owen O. snarls bastardizations at the world. A bell rings and Pavlov's dog has a seizure on the dance floor. Since I'm not a part of it yet, I see it: how a group of people can become a blizzard, how all the time spent buying and picking out exactly the right clothes doesn't mean a thing now because nobody is looking at clothes or poses. It's about force and pulse and unleashing the gigantic urges. I am pushing through skin and spike to get to Amy. I am jolting through this human turbulence to catch sight of Sally. I am slamming though this bright, bright darkness to figure out who the hell I'm looking for, and why.

Amy. She's ten feet away. Not looking for me or for anything else. She's in the middle of this conflagration and looks entirely alone.

It scares me.

I recognize it.

I am hearing Lars L.'s bassline. I am falling into it, the black of it, the pit of it. It screams that time is an angry machine. Music is an angry machine. We are all angry machines.

I've lost my kilter. I am downwarding. And it's worse cause I know I'm suppose to be going up.

_Amy. Just make your way to Amy._

Knuckles is in my way. I try to maneuver around him, and he responds with a fevered shove. I shove back. He catches my shoulder too hard and I spin around. I stumble. I bodycheck Amy.

She doesn't laugh. She just throws herself right back at me. Slam and retreat. Then _I _slam and retreat. We should be smiling, but we're not. I throw my whole body at her, full-frontal crash. She is all resistance. She holds her ground and there we are, no distance now, he face so close it's almost a blur.

"What the hell?" she yells, and it's not me she's speaking to.

Knuckles' elbow hits my back and I press forward and she's right there. I'm reaching out and she's right there. Right at that moment, the amps amplify and the music takes on such a pulse that it becomes my heartbeat and her heartbeat. I know it. She knows it. This is the point where we could break apart and that would be it, totally it. But I look into her eyes and she looks into mine and we recognize it—the excitement of being here, the excitement of being now. And maybe I'm realizing what a part of it she is and maybe she's realizing what a part of it I am, because suddenly we're not crashing as much as we are combining. The chords swirling around us are becoming a tornado, tightening and tightening and tightening, and we are at the center of it and of each other. My wrist touches hers right at the point of our pulses, and I swear I can feel it. That thrum. We are moving to the music and at the same time we are a stillness. I am not losing myself in the barrage, only in her. I am finding her. And she is—yes, she is finding me. The crowd is pressing in on us and the bassline is revealing everything. We are two people who are part of a lot more people, and at the same time we are our own part. There isn't loneliness, only this intense twoliness. There's only one way to test it, and that is to dare a movement, to push farther and see if she wants it to go there. I find her lips and I make that kiss.

She's pulling my quills and I've got the fabric of 'our' jacket bunched in a fist and it's nothing like talking and it's right there and we're taking it and taking it and taking it.

Then, all too soon, she pulls away. I open my eyes and I see that she's hesitating.

Then she does something I never expected and I hate seeing it.

She's crying.

"What's wrong?" I yell.

She puts her fists to her eyes to wipe away the tears. She's trying not to let it continue, but it just keeps flowing and I feel so useless to know that I can't stop them.

She yells something, but I can't hear her. "What?" I yell.

She's right in my ear and she yells, "WHY NOW?" and I know exactly what she's talking about. Why now, and not then, ten years ago?

I find her hand and immediately I'm leading her away. I should have known I would have to answer that. I'm still trying to find the answer myself. Why am I leading her away to talk to her about it when I can't answer? I guess I want to know why she left. It's an answer for an answer.

We are piercing through the rumbling tumbling crowd and our arms are like the most precarious bridge, held together by that single, pulling clasp. I think, _if she lets go, it's all over. If I let go, it's all over. _And because she is holding so tight, even though she is probably angry with me, I hold on so tight. I am being jostled from all sides—I know there will be bruises tomorrow—but somehow this hand-hold is immune. Somehow we stay together. We are graced, we are together, even though we are so apart because of that doubt and the tears that Amy is shedding. We are making it through.

I look around, then I drag us into a small room to the side of the Laddies' Room. It's the size of a closet, and it's dominated by a lime-green couch in front of a big mirror. There's a priest's collar thrown over the back of the couch, and plenty of open makeup. I turn on the light and look at her, still bawling her eyes out.

I can't stand it. I hate seeing tears, especially if I caused them. I wipe away a few tears with my thumb as I rest my hands on her face. And she looks at me, but with pity.

"What's wrong?"

She looks away. "I saw him."


	10. Chapter 10

Once again, I apologize for the VERY long wait. But do not worry, because I have no more school for two months and my job search is not doing too good.

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**10. Amy**

I can't tell him.

I don't want him to be crushed by knowing. That's why I'm crying like the complete idiot I am, making Sonic think that it's his fault when it's really mine, Sally's and Sonic's stupid heart that refuses to cooperate with the balance of common sense. I can't tell him that I saw Sally in the crowd. It'll make him forget everything that has happened between us and everything that happened this night. It will make him feel the same pain he felt before today, and I don't want to cause that. So what else can I do than to blame my own stupidity on him?

I'm the one who ran off ten years ago. I'm the one who hasn't talked to him in who-knows-how-long. I'm the one who deserves the pain that Sonic would feel. But how could I have been so stupid? How could I have yelled "why now?" and how could I have been crying? How stupid can I get? I ruined a moment that I have been wanting for these past twenty years, and I just throw it away because of pity. It's not bad, but I ruined all my chances. So now I'm being lead by Sonic through this crowd to someplace I don't know and am going to have to come up with something to say. And I just _have_ to come up with the lamest thing ever that ruins my chances even more. I know that Sonic knows who I'm talking about when I say "I saw him." Sonic thinks that I still care about the loser now, all because I couldn't come right out and say "I feel bad for you." That wouldn't have been so hard, right? Heck, he might have kissed me more if I said that. But I don't want him thinking  
about it. So I walk about, slamming the door behind me and smiling in approval when Sonic yells "OUCH! That hurt!" as the door took impact on his foot. It's all her fault.

I'm all hate now.

I charge into the pit, looking for the person who has caused my future miseries after this night. I see her being lifted and carried over peoples' hands towards the stage. I can't even hear the music. It's not in me anymore. I stomp right to where the wretched squirrel who destroyed Sonic's sanity and pull her feet so that she tumbles down to the ground.

"Ow!" she yells. "That hurt!" I don't care. I grab her wrist and drag her away from all the chaos and to the outdoors. I can finally hear myself and breath in fresh air. But I don't ponder on that.

"WHY?" I yell at Sally, who is leaning against the wall with a tired expression on her face.

"What?"

"Why did you leave Sonic?"

She sighs. "I'm hungry. Eat, then talk."

Fair enough. My stomach is growling.

We walk into the grocery across the street and, as if by instinct, we both head straight to the cookie isle. She grabs Chips Ahoy! while I grab the Oreos, and in sync we rip open the packages and start munching our cookies. The clerk yells, "You've gotta pay for that, you know," and we yell back "WE KNOW!" since we already have had that order before. After three cookies, Sally starts talking.

"When I first started dating Sonic, I thought that it would be very good for my image. He was cute, kind and he was a hero. I really liked him too. But then, after a few months, he started to take it seriously. He told me he loved me, but I couldn't say the same thing back. I know I should be settling down now, since I'm a princess it's my "duty," but I couldn't bring myself to fall for him. I use to love him, but...I met someone else. Don't ask. Anyways, I did not want to break Sonic's heart. He's too good for that. So I had to tell him it's over so that he couldn't be more hurt than he is now. I don't know why he started taking it seriously like that. I think he loved someone before but she left him or something. That's what I've been told. Anyways, he was probably depressed about that so he wanted someone to get his mind off of it, since he's not one for the commitment.

For once in my life, I am speechless. I have just eaten my thirteenth consecutive Oreo under five minutes. When I do speak, I know from the security mirror hanging behind Sally and in front of me that I am speaking from a mouth blackened by Oreo bits. "You'll have to tell him why, Sally. He deserves to know. And he's gonna be damaged goods until he does know."

So Sonic won't be going through my rehabilitation program. That's okay. He'll make some other girl, the right girl, a great boyfriend one day. He'll be the love of some lucky girl's life, and maybe after I've had some sleep after this epic night, I'll be glad for him and the future he's waiting to grab, once Sally truly sets him free. So I won't be part of his life other than his footnote "date" and former obsessive fan-girl at age 12. So I have a lifetime of loneliness ahead of me, just as I've already known. That's okay too. There are lots of careers for frigid girls. I can dedicate myself to good deeds. I'll become a song writer and write songs about broken hearts and Christina Agulera will sing my heart out about broken hearts to the public and I'll be on the sidelines tearing up, lip syncing and remembering this night, the two kisses and Sonic's smile. I'll become an isolated person in my apartment who only writes day and night about how my life got screwed up, who orders food over the Internet and drinks truck loads of coffee a day. I'll be floating along in my own little world, knowing that the expressive person I became was because of this night. So I should be thanking Sonic, not hating him, because I'd be able to meet Justin Timberlake in the near future and work along side of him and will make his best hit single since "What Comes Around Goes Around."

"You're wearing his jacket," Sally says. "He never lets me wear his jacket."

It's Sally whose actions have caused me the night from heaven-hell, so I have no problem letting her pay for my Oreos. I leave her at the counter fumbling for her wallet. I am ready for home. I am ready to sleep in m own bed, to wake up tomorrow morning and figure out a life plan. I head for the front door, but not before imparting some last saintly wisdom with Sally. "Be more careful next time, idiot." I tell her.

She doesn't look up from her fumbling wallet maneuver. She just says, "yeah yeah" and goes about her business. But I know she's going to be careful.

I have enough cash for a cab ride all the way back home. I look out onto the street but see sonic instead, leaning against a telephone booth outside the grocery.

I am not about hate anymore, or humiliation, or regret. I am too tired for that, too done and yet too renewed. I walk over to him and lightly punch his arm. Then I caress that cheek of his one last time, because I deserve it. I tell him, "You are absolved."

I walk away, placing my pinkies in my mouth to whistle for a cab, all alone on this almost-morning deep in the throes of big bad Lower Manhattan, but protected by the sacred shroud of Salvatore upon mine shoulders.

I'm keeping Sonic's jacket


	11. Chapter 11

I am forced to use a crappy program to post this, since we got our computers taken away from school, so there may be a few weird grammar errors. Please tell me where and I'll fix them

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**11. Sonic**

Damn her.

Damn her for getting in that cab. Damn her for screwing with my head. Damn her for not knowing what she wants. Damn her for dragging me into it. Damn her for being such a fantastic kisser. Damn her for ruining my favorite band. Damn her for barely saying a word before she left. Damn her for not waving. Damn her for getting my hopes up. Damn her for taking off with my damn jacket.

Damn me.

Damn me for always getting into situations like this. Damn me for caring. Damn me for not knowing the words that could've made her stay. Damn me for _not_ knowing what I want. Damn me for wavering. Damn me for not kissing her the right way. Damn me for letting her go ten years ago. Damn me for getting my hopes up. Damn me for not having more realistic hopes. Damn me for giving her my damn jacket.

Damn.

If I hadn't stayed those extra two minutes in the dressing room, staring at the mirror as if my face would suddenly tell me the answers my mind didn't know. If I'd been able to push through the crowd instead of being stuck inside its haphazard body-maze. If I'd seen her in that grocery before she got to the door. If I'd put my speed to good use. If I'd managed any of these ifs--would I have been able to avoid the inevitable screw-up, the full force screw-off? My pride shut me up, my hurt shut me down, and together they ganged up on my hope and let her get away. Twice. To go back into the club alone means defeat. To stay outside looking at the taillights of her cab means defeat. to go home and pass out means defeat. To sit right down on the pavement and stare at the curb means defeat--but it's the defeat that's closest, so I sit down and start tracing the edge of the sidewalk. I've moved myself to fact level, which is exactly where I should be. Foot in mouth, stomped all over, kick me kick me kick me. If I had my guitar, I might be able to make some change. But instead all I have are the songs crashing together in my head. They're all sad. They're all bitter. And they're all I have.

I didn't let her go. She left. It's not my fault. She did it.

She could undo it.

This feeling is so damn familiar.

It's the same damn situation it was ten years ago.

Why does it always turn out like this? Why does life constantly repeat itself, even though we seriously deserve something better? Why do we even bother? Why do we make ourselves so open to such easy damage? Is it all loneliness? Is it all fear? Or is it just to experience those narcotic moments of belonging with someone else? Amy, don't you know it was as simple as the way you dragged me wherever you want and that I followed willingly? You didn't have to make out with me to get me there. And now I know this. I've always known it. And now I can say this. And now you're gone.

It's my fault, isn't it?

Screw this.

Screw this wondering. Screw this trying and trying. Screw this belief that two people can become one ideal. Screw this helplessness. Screw this waiting for something to happen that probably won't ever happen. "Oh Sonic--what did she do to you?"

I look up, and it's I swear it's Sally standing over me, looking sympathetic. It's like being in one of those shows where the dead mother comes back every once in a while. Impossible, but right when you most expect her.

"Sally," I say, because I can't think of anything to say. She shakes her head, brushes off a spot of pavement, then sits down next to me.

"Where's Amy?" she asks.

I shrug. "Probably three quarters of the way through the Lincoln Tunnel."

"She never could take it," Sally says. "Never. Put hr on the spot and she'll just refuse to admit that the spot is there. She protests and fights, but she's very secure. She'll go with it, but avoid it if she can."

She hasn't said this many words to me in four weeks--no, more than that. Because toward the end all the words started leaving except for the ones that had to lock up at the end of the night.  
I don't know whether I can touch her. I mean, reach across those two or three inches and let my hand fall on her arm. Feel what that's like again. See if it feels like the past or something in a different tense. But as soon as I smelt Amy's hair and looked into her sparkling, green eyes, I realize that what I had with Sally could never even compare to what I had with Amy. The memories flashed in front of my eyes: her pleading for me to slow down so that she could just hold me, her tears that flowed like crazy when I handed her the rose and told her I would never leave her, the way she said "my hero" as I ran from Eggman's base with her secured tightly in my arms. Nothing could compare to those treasured moments.

But still, when someone breaks up with you--which you took such satisfaction in--suddenly becomes unfair. It's like that with Sally right now. She's even managed to arrange herself in the lamp light so the shadows hit in just the right ways. It feels like a rebuke.

"Sorry," she says.

"Sorry?"

"Yeah, sorry." She stares at some punks walking across the street, a small grin on her face.

"Sally, I--"

"Do you like her?"

"What?"

"Amy. Do you like her?

I don't want to admit it, but I say, "Always have."

"Always have?"

"Always have."

"You guys really are destined to be."

I look at her. "Destiny doesn't always play nice."

"True. Tell me, were you heart broken when Amy left how-many-years ago?"

I look away from her. "Crushed." And I didn't even hesitate.

"Damn, now I feel even more guilty. So I'm gonna help you now."

"How?"

"By giving you advice. Amy's not a runner. Not usually, anyways. But for some reason she doesn't think you will be able to handle her chaotic life, so you and her have switched places and she's the one running away. She doesn't want to, she just feels that it's the right thing to do. Now, you've just gotta correct her thinking and chase after her."

She's making sense, and that's like a rebuke. i Why couldn't we have had these conversations when we were together? i I think. And then I realize what I've done--I've made _when we were together_ a separate, almost distant place. I still feel hurt, but I feel much less desire to undo it.

"I'm through with you tonight," Sally says, standing up. "Find that insane person and have insane children together. Don't name them after fruits. Be original and just name them like children. And please don't name one Dash."

"But she's gone."

Sally snorts. "Sonic, Amy's not _gone_. She's clearly _somewhere_. All you got to do is find out where she is."

"Any ideas?"

"Nope," Sally answers, walking out of my life once again. "You're on your own."

I let her leave. I watch her walk into the blast of music blazing from the open door at the club. Then I look back at the sidewalk and try to map the possibilities.


	12. Chapter 12

Yes yes, I know. I haven't updated in who-knows-how-long. Even though it's summer vacation. But I'm trying! Oh, and go here if you're interested in knowing what I'm gonna write after the current story completion. Submit your votes!!! Go to Deviantart . com and type misstomboy911 in the browser. Click on one of the flowers and you'll be brought to the picture. Above it towards the left will be the title and my name. Click on my name. You'll come to my page. On the right will be a journal entry that says "You're future entertainment." Look there and you can vote here if you want to choose what story you want me to write next. Sorry I didn't do a link. It doesn't work

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**12. Amy**

I am still hungry.  
I am also still tired, and still vaguely interested in my future life as a song writer, but still.

"Are we going or not?" the taxi driver asks me. We've sat through five rotations of the red, green light while I decide where I want to go. The driver is putting up with my uncertainty because he's hopeful I won't follow through on my threat to either be driven to Jersey or file a complaint if he gives me any more crap about leaving the city.

"Where to, lady?"

I DON'T KNOW!"

I can only process to rational thoughts. (1) I want more stale Oreos from the Korean Grocery, and (2) I don't want some stupid guy to be the reason I stop liking Where's Fluffy? I need to erase the memory of my favorite Fluffy song from being my last memory of the band, the song they were performing when genius-girl decided to show her weak and stupid points to Sonic and ruin my life once again. I need to get back to the club.

"Back to Ludlow," I tell the driver.

The driver sighs, shakes his head and pulls an illegal U-turn across four lanes of traffic from where we've been idling at the curb. He turns up the radio volume, perhaps hoping he will not hear me if I change my mind again.  
Vintage Britney sings from the pop radio station; she knows about toxic. Sonic must think I'm toxic. He didn't try to stop me when I left that room, or when I let him to get into this taxi. He didn't even wave goodbye.  
The cab is careening down Bowery, whizzing by the club where earlier tonight Sonic had asked if I would be his girlfriend for five minutes, then made me like him again. I remember seeing Crazy Lou at the Where's Fluffy? show, long after these five minutes had expired. Lou would only leave his club for someone else to close up shop if...

"STOP!" I shout at the driver over the music. I'm already where I'm suppose to be.

The driver slams on the brakes so hard I toss my cookies--truly. The jolt sends my bag of Oreos on the floor. The taxi halted, the driver turns around and from the side of the plastic divide yells back at me, "WHAT DO YOU WANT ANYWAYS, LADY? WHAT'S THE MATTER WITH YOU?"  
Tal is across the street, ushering the remaining club inhabitants from the establishment, closing up his uncle's place for the night. His post-show usual, Tal's shirt is off and he is sweeping the sidewalk. I remember Tal's chest, all lean muscles, too scrawny, too vegan. I remember my hands on Sonic's chest. I liked it. Perfect muscles in the perfect places. He really is an angel. Obviously cause he does the super hero stuff.

I don't know what's the matter with me, driver. But if I am destined to a life of loneliness, isn't there some side rule that entitles me to go out in one last blaze of glory? One last booty call?  
Three times I start to get out of the cab and pursue the last rite. I reach for the door handle and count the money in my wallet. Three times I stop and sit still again.

"What'll it be? Are you getting in or getting out?" the driver asks over the tail end of Britney's song. I can hear the clash wailing in my head. _Should I stay or should I go?_ I can't think with all these voices!

"You want to sit in this cab and decide where to go, I don't care," the driver continues. "It's your money." He points at the meter, still running. Time never was on my side.

"Okay," I say. "Sorry. But could you at least change the station?"

"Deal," he says. The next station is playing "I Fell into Pieces" by Patsy Cline. I have no choice but to cry. The driver hands me a box of kleenex from the front.

"Want to tell me about it?"

"Boys are idiots," I tell him, sniffing. "I hope you don't let your daughters date them."

"I try not to," he laughs. "I try-"

I ask the driver to turn his headlights off while we idle at yet another curb. I want to think before I decide whether or not to talk to Tal, and I don't want Tal to notice me in this cab before I've had time to figure this out. I am curious how Tal came to be back in my world, but getting out of this cab to ask Tal the question_ Why did you come back to Manhattan? _may be more of a waste than the meter I am allowing to run through my time and money while I sit in this back seat. Why does anyone come here? Mere words to defy that answer. The question is too big. Whatever Tal came back for, I'm sure he didn't come back for me. But if he did, he's even stupider than me.  
Tomorrow is already here and I'm truly feeling bittersweet. I shouldn't, but I do. I still want Sonic.  
I should have trusted him.  
Happy endings don't happen.  
Okay, I know one thing I want, something that I _can_ have. I want to conclusively end the Tal regression spiral. So maybe I lost out on Sonic. But at least now I know. There's gotta be another Sonic out there.

I also really want some borscht about now. "Could you please turn the lights back on?" I ask the driver. I direct him to the 24 hour Ukrainian restaurant in the East Village that's the one place place Sally, Caroline and I ever agreed on.  
The three of us sometimes cap our nights out, at least those that don't end up in fights or hooking up or passing out, at the restaurant with the great borscht and clean bathroom. I wonder if the three of us will ever go to this restaurant together again, or if that era is over, like mine and Tal's, and Sonic and Sally's.

"Good choice," the driver tells me. He's been watching Tal's sweeping motions from the window.

I consider taking a catnap for the short drive over to the East Village but my chest is ringing. I forgot I was wearing Sonic's--I mean, my--jacket. I reach into the chest pocket to pull out a crumbled ten-dollar bill and a small, flip-up cell phone. I don't know if I should answer Sonic's phone. The name is flashing Tails.

I do anyways. "Tails? Is Caroline okay?"

"Finally!" he says. "Yes, she's still asleep. Seems happy. She keeps mumbling something about cartoons and Krispy Kreams in the morning. But I've been trying to call Sonic for the past half-hour. Didn't you guys hear the phone? I'm lost. I'm sitting in a pocking lot of 7-Eleven. I have no idea where I am or how to get to your house."

I try to talk Tails through it, figure out where he is, but I'm hopeless at this stuff and am confused like crazy. The taxi driver slams his breaks again. I think we're near St. Marks Place now. "Give me that," the driver says, pointing at the phone.

I hand it to him and the driver talks to Tails, figures out where he is, and how to get him home to my place in Englewood Cliffs, then hands the phone back to me. "Here. Tails wants to talk to you again."

"Hi again," I say into the phone.

I hear Tails giggle. "So how's it going? How was your date with Sonic? You love him, right?"

"It's been great. We're getting married."

"Really? Can I talk to him?"

"No."

"Why not?"

"Cause I don't know where he is." I click off the cell.

We're at the restaurant. "You coming in?" I ask the driver. "Borscht and pierogies are on me."

He smiles at me. "Thanks, but I'm a working man. got to keep working. You keep the kleenex, though."

I take the box of kleenex out of the cab and give the driver my hundred-dollar bill, the whole of my emergency money. I only have enough money left in my wallet for something to eat and to take the bus back to Englewood Cliffs, so I'll have to hang out at the restaurant for a couple hours until the bus service is running again.

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Remember to vote!!! Unless it's too complex and you want me to post everything on my homepage here on fanfiction? Vote on that too


	13. Chapter 13

**13. Sonic**

Life fails. Songs don't always.  
I'm on the curb. Taking it all in, including the nothing.  
Where I am, how I am, who I am, what I'm not.  
It starts to come to me.

_On Ludlow  
the world goes so slow  
All the things I don't know  
closing in_

On Ludlow  
the sidewalk shadow  
keeps pleading 'don't go'  
but you won't hear

Alright, Sonic. Louder.

_WHO WILL APOLOGIZE FOR HOW WE ARE?  
WHO WILL NAVIGATE WHEN WE'VE GONE THIS FAR?_

_ANSWER ME  
ANSWER THIS  
ANSWER ALL THE QUESTIONS THAT I'M TOO AFRAID TO ASK_

_ON LUDLOW  
YOU LET ME KNOW  
AND I LET YOU GO  
AND WE WERE WRONG WRONG WRONG_

_ON LUDLOW  
THERE'S A SHADOW  
THAT LETS THE TRUTH SHEW  
AND WE WERE WRONG WRONG WRONG_

_NEVER AGAIN  
IS WHAT I ALWAYS SAY  
NEVER AGAIN  
IS WHAT I AL--WAY--SAY_

Take it back down.

_On Ludlow  
It's just a stone's throw  
from where we could go  
to where we are_

_On Ludlow  
Find me on Ludlow  
On Ludlow  
find me here..._

"Dude! I'm impressed!"

Knuckles slaps me on the back, followed by rouge, who stands next to him in front of me.

"You're not in there for Where's Fluffy?"

"Needed a break."

I notice Rouge observing me, so I'm guessing she gets a clue to why I'm sitting on the sidewalk singing my trampled-on heart out.

"Knuckles," she says. "Go wait over there."

"What?" he exclaims. "Why?"

"Just go. Sonic and I are having a chit-chat."

Knuckles sulks and does as he is told. Rouge sits next to me and I brace myself for my second confrontation of the hour.

"Where's Amy?"

"No idea."

"Why'd she leave?"

"No idea."

"Why didn't you stop her?"

"No idea to that either."

"So you blew it?"

"Yeah."

I drop my head into my hands, rubbing my temples in some sort of misery.

"Was it heading towards her leaving?" Rouge asked.

"No. I think there could've been a chance with her. There always had been."

"So?"

"So what?"

"So what are you going to do about it?"

"I don't know--sulk?"

"You're cute when you sulk, but not in this case. I think there's a more active course that might be advantageous."

She gets up and kneels in front of me. "You're the fastest hedgehog on the planet. I'm sure Amy hasn't gone far. Find her." She gets up and starts walking towards Knuckles. She yells over her shoulder to me, "Don't let her take your place."

I watch Knuckles and Rouge walk hand-in-hand down the street. I don't think they notice, but their legs are in perfect rhythum. Before they round the corner, they both turn as one and wave goodnight to me.

I'm on my own again. I decide to check my messages...and realize that not only have I lost my jacket, but I've lost my phone too. But then I realize that Amy has my jacket and that I can call her to find out where she is. I find a payphone and Amy answers on the fourth ring.

"Sonic's phone," Amy answers.

I mean, I knew she would answer. But I'm still dumb-struck.

"Is Sonic there?" I finally ask.

"No," she says. "He's out defeating a minor threat. Do you want to call again and leave a voicemail?"

It's like I can't help it. I am absolutely falling back into conversation with her. Smiling, I ask, "Can you give him a message?"

"Do I need a pen? Cause if I do, you're out of luck."

"No. Could you just tell him that he totally blew it when he let you get away in that cab and that he should have never let her go those ten years earlier?"

There's a pause. "Who is this?"

"And could you let him know that I'm really relieved that he has finally unshackled himself from Sally?"

"You're kidding, right?"

"And could you pass on the message that it's not enough to be sitting alone on a sidewalk writing a song for a girl if you don't have the guts to at least try talking to her again?"

Another pause. "Are you serious?"

"Where are you?"

"Veselka. Where are you?"

"In a few seconds I'll be there. In the meantime, could you pass the message?"

I hang up before she can reply.

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	14. Chapter 14: FINAL

**14. Amy**

That is so rude, hanging up on a person like that.  
I refuse to believe that the call just happened. I'm so sleepy, I'm hallucinating.  
Just in case, I go to the bathroom, splash some cold water on my face to wake up, finger through my hair so that it looks half decent.

When I get back to the table, it is heaped with food: the bowl of hot borscht, half a dozen peirogies, some kielbasa. The blintzes should be following soon. What can I say? I am very, very hungry and I am craving meat bbad./b Besides, I can save the leftovers for the homeless people outside.

I dive into the food like I have just been released from prison. I am careful not to look like a pig, so I at least eat dignified enough not to get kicked out of the restaurant. I reach for a peirogie, but notice something. There's only five. This, is a big matter. There are suppose to be six. SIX, people. I was about to call the waitress but was stopped by a voice next to me.

"You still haven't noticed that I'm sitting right here?"

Holy crap.

I poke him to see if he's real.

Holy, holy crap.

Then I notice the missing peirogie jabbed into with a fork in Sonic's hand.

"Hey! Who said you could have that?" I try to grab the fork from his hand, but who would be stupid enough to think they could prevent Sonic the hedgehog, fastest creature alive, from eating your peirogie?

Oh, right.

He bit into it. I glare at him. "I payed for that, ya know?"

"Yeah. Thanks," he says with his mouth full. He gulps it down and a sly smile curls up on his lips. "How many people did you order food for, anyways?" He takes a sip of my Coke, belches, then repeats my last words to him back at me. "You are absolved? What the hell did that mean?" He sounds hostile but he's got that damn half smile laced back.

"I mean you're free from all the problems that have to do with me," I tell him, stuffing my mouth with some kielbasa.

His eyes widen slightly. "What are you talking about?"

"Never mind."

He frowns with an eyebrow raised. Then he says, "Can I have my jacket back?"

"No."

"Why?"

"Because Salvatore wants me to have it."

"He told you that?"

"He did."

"But what if the jacket didn't really belong to Salvatore? What if if really belonged to his evil twin, Salamander, who only had Salvatore's name stenciled on so people would mistake him for the good and then Salamander would be free to carry on with his nefarious mission in life?"

"What nefarious mission would that be?"

"You know, world domination thing? Everything Eggman lives for?"

"Ya know, people ought to just focus on being individual, responsible citizens of the earth instead of evil scientists. And you can just tell that to Salamander next time he comes asking you for his jacket. I start laughing, because conversations like this are just too natural. But I'll tell you something that is unnatural. It's the way Sonic's looking at me so passionately, with a soft smile that is just so sweet that I just want to stare at him all day.

"What have I been missing all these years?" Sonic asked.

"Uh, I dunno." I quickly take the first thing I see (coke) and ingest it however it's suppose to be ingested.

"I know," Sonic answers. He moves his hand and plays with my quills, the distance between us only inches apart. He gradually moves closer to me and I greet his lips with mine. It was kind of uncontrollable, ya know. I mean, the way he was looking at me and all. And he was approaching me for that reason, which I just found out because he has his hand pushing my head even closer to his, although it kind of seems impossible, as if trying to get as much depth in the kiss as mentally possible. Not that I mind. Not one bit.

Our lips trail each others, and now I'm back where I belong: in his arms. He's holding me as if I would somehow disappear again, and he's just kissing so much that I think I'm gonna faint. He pulls away at the point I think I'm going to die of happiness, but our faces are only inches apart. He leans his forehead against mine, his hand resting at the back of my neck.

It's weird how just a few minutes ago I thought I would never even see him in person again, and how I truly believed I would live a life of a terrible loneliness. But here I am, thinking that after such a kiss I will never be able to stop touching him. Oh, great. My obsession's starting again.

But at least he's got some sort of obsession over me. I mean, he just refuses to stop kissing me. He's giving me little pecks here and there. Some last five seconds, some one, some ten. His lips are like some demon, and I'm just taking it all in. Heh, _he's _the one who needs controlling now.

There is a point in time where I remember that we're in a restaurant and that I'm suppose to be eating some Ukrainian delight, so I say through Sonic's truckload of kisses, "S-Sonic. Mmm. Ya need to...stop...now."

"Why?"

Through much effort and devastating distaste to the idea of stopping, I manage to put my hand in front of my lips. He still doesn't untangle his arms from around me, and it doesn't help that his face is still so close that his nose is touching mine.

"Take into consideration the whereabouts before you start getting horny."

"I'm not getting horny! That was only twenty years of repressed affection being launched out at you. There's still a few years to go."

I blink. "What do ya mean?"

"Unless you haven't noticed the apparently obvious situation about ten years ago, you would know."

"I don't know."

With a disappointed sigh, he says, "I've been in love with you for the past twenty years."

I have no idea how my face looks right now, but I'm guessing it's such a look of shock that Sonic looks at me as if I'm the stupidest being on the planet.

"Knuckles and Tails said it was pretty obvious," he explained.

"I don't believe you."

"Amy, Amy, Amy. Think of all the times I ran from you. I did that cause I was not use to the feeling of being around you, so I got kind of mad that you were able to make me go insomnia cause I was worried about you. And come on. I was fifteen, not ready for commitment AT ALL, and if I were to tell you I loved you, that would mean immediate marriage arrangements."

Now that I think about it, it all makes sense.

Sonic always got this blush whenever I talked to him. And the way he looked at me when I wore the dress for the party Cosmo launched while up in space. He was sweating all over. And the way he called my name when I was in danger kind of gave away his little crush.

"God! I'm so STUPID!" I bang my head on the table as if doing that will somehow rid of the dullness of mind.

"Hey, hey. You're not the only one. Don't hurt yourself."

"I wasted so much these past ten years just because I was so clueless as to realize that you were madly and deeply infatuated with me!"

"Yeah, pretty much. But focus on the now, will ya. Cause if you break your head and die right here and now, then I won't be able to give you the years of affection I still haven't given you."

I position my head so that I'm looking up at Sonic from the surface of the table. Looking in his eyes, I know that he truly does care for me and that he really does want me. God, there is no better feeling than to love someone and to be loved back. I could die right now; it's so amazing. I smile and lift my head so that I can meet Sonic's lips once more.

Of course, the best moments are always cut short at these moments. The stupid, old waitress comes along and yells at us to be mature. As the lady turns away, I stick my tongue at her, making Sonic giggle.

I decide to finish my wondrous feast laid before me, cause my cravings need to be put aside for the moment.

"So, Ames," Sonic says, picking up another peirogie and stuffing it in his mouth.

"So, you're gonna move now." He swallows the peirogie and comments, "Man, these are good. Almost as good as chilidogs."

"What do ya mean?"

"I mean almost as good as chilidogs."

"No, no. Before that."

"Oh. Well, you're gonna move, right? Back to Station Square."

"I am?"

"Well yeah. You're coming back ya know."

"Where?"

"To the Sonic Team. Ya got your future all settled with me, anyways."

"I never agreed to that," I stated casually, chugging a chunk of borscht into my mouth to stop my smile.

"Well, I did. I'm chasing after you now, missy. I ain't letting you go again."

I smile up at him, and again he leans down to kiss me.

"Hey! I told you kids to smarten up!"

We're not kids, lady!

* * *

DONE! FINISHED! OFFICIALLY!!!!!! BAM!!!!! NO MORE WAITING!!!!! OH MY GOD!!! AMAZING!!!!


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